The Brightest Star in this Universe
by Tobirion
Summary: A shapeshifting alien crashes his spaceship in the fields of Cloud's farm. He calls himself Sephiroth and claims to have crashed while investigating an 'anomaly' somewhere on Gaia. A human, even if he's still recovering from loss and not feeling like a hero, teams up with a Jenovian not only for his sake, but also his planet's. [Sephiroth/Cloud]
1. Chapter 1

It sounded like the heavens had split open directly on top of Cloud Strife. He woke with a gasp, his heart in his throat. Shooting up in bed, Cloud only had a few moments to register the objects on his dresser and desk rattling in the dimness before the whole bedroom lit up with searing blue light.

Cloud pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and then clutched his ears. He fell out of bed and hit the hardwood floor in his confusion. He yelled something, scared and disoriented, but his voice was easily eclipsed by the shrill whine of _whatever this was_ that grew to a roar, inside Cloud's body and out, deafening—

Impact. The ground shook like a Gaiaquake. Cloud bounced on the floor and landed painfully on his shoulder. His house was full of crashes—breaking glass, dresser drawers coming loose, objects clattering to the floor in the bathroom. The few seconds afterward were unnaturally still and quiet as if the whole planet couldn't believe what had just happened and was reeling from the shock.

"Ow," Cloud moaned. He picked himself up off the floor, his ears popped, and the world turned to chaos once more.

The slippers by the side of the bed weren't especially sturdy but they protected his feet as Cloud staggered out of his bedroom. Broken glass crunched beneath him. He blinked rapidly and squinted both from his ringing headache and to see in the darkness. The regular shapes of his home—the coat rack, the couch, the rectangular pictures by the bannister—seemed warped and foreboding, terrifying, even.

Cloud did not own a gun. He grabbed a hammer from his bike's toolbox and burst outside. After that eerie silence before, the night was now alive. The nocturnal ones were awake and the previously asleep creatures were too. He tuned out the chattering and buzzing and focused on the far edges of his property. There—to the Southeast. Something large. Something metal. Something smoldering, the only brightness other than the stars for a mile.

The blond man headed for the thing without delay. His slippers shuffled through the tall, unkempt grasses. He lost one in the fields that hadn't seen an hour's worth of care since seven months and fourteen days ago. Cloud pressed on.

As the big thing in the distance got less distant and even bigger, Cloud nearly turned around. It was the size of a bus, and it was looking a lot like…

But there was no fucking way…

The thing—the craft?—looked metal. Chunks glowed red from heat. Parts of the field were scorched, the fragile grasses crumbling to ash, but it hadn't spread. Metal and… things had broken off during the crash. Tech spilled out onto Cloud's farm. Wires and circuitry, but nothing like Cloud had ever seen… this seemed to shift before his eyes, designed for one function one moment and another the next.

Something creaked from inside.

While it was the size of a bus it wasn't the shape of one. This was more streamlined, wider in back and narrower in front, thought the nose was buried in the ground so he couldn't see exactly. Wings extended from the sides of the craft, angled up for maximum drag… as if trying to slow a descent.

Another creak.

Cloud swallowed thickly and crept closer. He stepped over gutted machinery that sparkled and winked at him. He side-stepped tubing spilling a green sludge onto the dirt. He reached the damaged craft.

He didn't need to locate a door or hatch or anything, because a section of the paneling dematerialized right in front of him, as if someone had been waiting.

This was the kind of thing that ended up in those bizarre black and white magazines at the grocery store check-out, maybe, Cloud had thought on the walk over.

This was _definitely_ that kind of thing, Cloud thought now, as a massive ball of multicolored gel oozed out of the craft, stopping a few feet in front of him. Cloud dropped the hammer.

It was taller than Cloud. It… wasn't a ball. The gel, or… plasma, perhaps, was shaped into writhing tentacles on bottom. It was how it had crawled out and onto the field. Where some were absorbed others grew, constantly.

The thing seemed silver one moment, then green, then both, and that color green, like the substance oozing from those blasted pipes… looked like mako.

Electricity swam lazily around inside the thing's body. The sparks squiggled like eels inside the plasma. Some came together and some zigzagged away.

Cloud felt faint. He stood there, staring, his brain almost unable to comprehend. Then the giant blob morphed.

It shrunk. Elongated. Grew two tentacles on bottom that supported it like legs. They became opaque, blue and yellows. Then they were skin, then they were the shapes of human legs. The thing formed a torso, and then a black leather jacket. Hair, too, and a face, and then eyes that were staring at him—

Cloud yelled in fright and scrambled backwards. He fell on his ass but was up quick as anything. His injured shoulder screamed at him. With a last few sickening _schliiiks_ the creature stopped transforming.

It was a man. A tall, towering man with pale, silvery skin and outrageously silver hair. He had hands, and _teeth_ and sharp ears, and predatory eyes, and a singular massive wing.

He eyed Cloud for a long moment. He blinked horizontally with a set of eyelids and then vertically like Cloud did with the outer ones. He tapped his wrist with two fingers. His hands were gloved. A small, shimmering ball of light rose from a device on his wrist.

"Pch," he said. "Kah. Wuh. Loo. Rrrr. Hweh."

Cloud took another step back, but that was all he could manage with being so frozen in terror.

"Fleeghrshkwyuzzksaxixibll…"

The man tried out a variety of sounds. He then enunciated clearly into the ball of light, "Common. A rudimentary language formed 1248 Shivas before the present moment. It is unknown how many languages are spoken on G-32x but the specimen before me speaks 'Common.' In my current form I am unable to produce Jenovian speech and thought patterns. Note: translate with the new Tuesti model upon returning to Reunion."

"You've got to be kidding," Cloud breathed, and then barked, "Hey! It seems like you can understand me. Stop! What do you want from us?"

Cloud would either go down in history books as that first brave man who interacted with alien life or the sniveling weakling who didn't put up a fight, who didn't try to show what humans could do.

"The specimen is frightened," the alien—motherfucking _alien—_ noted briefly. "I was investigating G-32x in response to Lazard's readings. The energy stream—due to the anomaly, I suspect—fried the sensors in my ship and disabled the engines. It is unknown how long repairs will take or, indeed, if they are possible at all."

The alien looked mournful for a moment. He then focused on Cloud. "Hello," he said. "Unless you mean to attack me, I wish you no harm."

Cloud could hardly believe what he was seeing, let alone hearing. There was an intelligent response, something quick and biting and strong, like a lead movie character would say in this situation. Instead Cloud just said, "You're an alien."

"Well, to me, you are the alien."

"…Was that a joke?"

Spoken into the ball of light: "Specimen has trouble processing humor. Unknown how intelligent the denizens of G-32x are."

Being _insulted_ by a mass of jellied electric tentacles that had turned into a man-like creature was the thing to snap Cloud out of it. "You said you meant me no harm. But what about my species? My planet? Why are you here? We—we don't want war with anybody—"

"I am a scientist." On the _s_ sound a long, forked tongue slithered out between his lips. " _I_ mean you no harm, but depending on your cooperation, others of my kind may. I will explain more later."

"Later?" Cloud asked, cautiously.

"I am going to swoon in about ten seconds. I sustained damage during the crash."

 _Swoon?_ Cloud thought. He then saw what the alien meant. His eyes closed and he passed out into the dirt.

* * *

The alien sweated what could only be mako. He grit his teeth and occasionally groaned in his sleep but he didn't wake up as Cloud dragged his heavy ass a couple hundred feet back to the house. Cloud didn't know why he was doing it. In fact, Cloud tried not to think of anything at all. He just moved. If he stopped to process all this he'd break so he kept going.

The guy's hair was tripping Cloud out. It seemed to exist on another plane. It was like… trapped starlight, all that energy concentrated in one place. It was like a photoshop edit, Cloud could only conclude, where someone had edited out hair and inserted on another layer an image of silver hair that sparkled, that thrummed with the beat of the universe.

It hurt to look at and the stench of mako seeping through the guy's pores made his head hurt too. When Cloud lugged him up the steps to the porch his legs turned into blue and yellow tentacles, just for a moment. The legs and tight leather pants returned.

Cloud wanted to scream, but he did not. They made it into the living room. His shoulder ached terribly. The alien's feet (webbed toes, though the rest seemed regular enough) knocked into things but Cloud didn't care. He was eight feet tall, easy. Heavy.

With a heave Cloud got his upper body on the couch. Another heave—the lower half. The mako on his hands turned them numb, so he washed them off in the sink. Back in the living room, Cloud stared at the alien for a long minute.

The wing stretched out over the back, huge and frightening. The outfit looked uncomfortable, all that sticky black leather... but Cloud wasn't about to undress him.

A fucking alien.

Cloud turned and ran from his house as if chased by demons from hell. He had lost his second slipper carrying the creature back and he sprinted, barefoot, through the fields. The neglect had left them uneven and prickly. He nearly sprained an ankle again in a rabbit hole but kept going until he'd passed the spaceship and then doubled back.

It still smoked. It still oozed. It was still _there,_ in his backyard, of the home he'd grown up in, of the home he'd ran away from, of the home he'd eventually returned to. It was real. The unconscious being on his couch, _real_.

Dropped hammer in hand, Cloud entered the craft.

He had to duck his head when standing. The whole thing was angled horribly, it being nose-down. Parts of the walls were obliterated. For something that hurtled from outer space it was in pretty good condition even with half its innards spilled everywhere.

There were no windows. It was all black. There were no computer displays with millions of buttons or futuristic holographic interfaces. Some panels shifted before his eyes, like before, but Cloud couldn't begin to fathom how it worked. This alien was some kind of… shapeshifting energy monster. The way it interacted with things had to be quite different from Cloud, with his stubby fingers and flesh.

In the back was a cube of mako. It seemed to be in a gelatinous form too, contained in a shield of clear, glasslike material.

Cloud yelled and smashed it with the hammer. Nothing happened. He swung again anyway. He smashed the walls, the floor. He struck the already-broken panels, satisfied when they cracked further.

Cloud Strife had been King of this tiny farm. The empty animal houses, the decrepit barn, the abandoned sewing room. It was all his, and he was bigger than all of it. Cloud bashed at everything in sight until he wrenched his shoulder further and the metal part of the hammer broke off. Then he stumbled outside and collapsed in the dirt.

Cloud Strife, although King of this place, was small. An alien slept on his couch. He was smaller than he'd thought possible.

It had been seven months and fourteen days since Cloud last cried. He'd told himself then that it was going to be the last time. Cloud tipped backwards, stared up at the stars, and wept.

* * *

Several hours passed before Cloud returned. He'd laid there for a while, curled up by the wreckage of an alien spacecraft, crying, dozing, he didn't know. He'd come back to himself as the sun started to rise.

It was hard, going back in there. The old Strife family farmhouse looked worse than usual. And that was… even without the missing shingles and broken windows. Cloud crept up the stairs. He knew where they creaked. The boards were old. He crouched and peeked over the bottom edge of the window.

The alien was awake. He sat up, facing away from him. The leather jacket was on the floor, exposing more slightly-gray, silverish skin. His deep voice carried easily through the now-empty window frame.

"—evidence suggests that G-32x's lifestream has been tainted by a resident of this planet. Intriguing, since I have concluded that they have not made extraterrestrial contact before, and would have no knowledge of how to do so. Ex. Tra. Terrrrrestrial. Esstrial. Extra. I am having an enjoyable time speaking with this species' biology— _lips, tongue,_ and _mouth,_ according to my ipsuchip. Much preferable to the expressive dance employed last time. The one who witnessed the crash is outside and believes I cannot hear him breathing. Come inside."

Cold ice rushed through Cloud's veins. He crouched a moment more and then stood. He came through the creaking screen door and the wooden one just behind it. He stood uncertainly before the alien feeling like he was on display, being scrutinized. It should have been the other way around—the alien had a wing, for Gaia's sake. Shirtless he looked like any other incredibly fit (hot?) dude, except he had four nipples, a set a centimeter below the set humans normally had.

It was like someone had tried to copy a human and done it really badly, with lots of glitches and mix-ups. Maybe that's exactly what had happened.

"Do you have a name?"

The alien tilted his head. "You may call me Sephiroth."

"Sephiroth," Cloud repeated, doubtful.

"It seems I know more of the religions those on your planet ascribe to than you."

"Just _stop,_ okay?" Cloud yelled, his voice cracking. "I get this is funny for you because you're surrounded by a bunch of primitive people who don't know you exist, but I am _freaking the fuck out_ about this! Aliens aren't supposed to exist but a spaceship crashed in my field!"

"Fuck," Sephiroth said. Cloud stared. "My apologies, I like that word."

Cloud covered his face with his hands. Something warm and soft pushed against him. It was the wing, Cloud realized, and it half-pushed, half-scooped him over and up onto the couch. As Cloud sat there, a little stunned, Sephiroth asked, "…You truly believed you were alone in the universe?"

"I—" Cloud snapped his mouth shut. It was hard to look away from Sephiroth. The alien as a human was gorgeous, made only more appealing by the blatant _wrongness_. The eyes, the canines, the nipples, the hair, the tongue, the skin. There was so much. "I always thought it was possible. Most people do. We're out there looking for life on our moons. But… it's not _me_ who's supposed to discover one. I'm not supposed to be talking to you, like this. I can't believe it's happening."

Sephiroth was quiet. His gaze made Cloud uncomfortable. He didn't know it wasn't nice to stare.

"What is your name?"

"…Cloud."

"We are now acquaintances. I will tell you something about myself so that we may be allies. I am forbidden from making first contact with new species on my own. The rest of the galaxy waits for those to develop the tools necessary to reach out by themselves. Crash-landing creates an exception. I would like you to understand that I am not here to invade, nor attack. You need not fear me. I wish to cooperate until I am able to return home."

Tension left Cloud's shoulders. He exhaled slowly.

"You have been broadcasting _Please don't kill me_ for the past few minutes."

"You read my mind?"

"Not exactly. I am a being of energy; I can sense strong feelings or temperaments."

Sephiroth waited, and Cloud realized he was waiting for a response. He was _serious._ "I, ah. There isn't much to know about me. Moved here a little over half a year ago. I'm just a regular, uh… human. That's my species."

"I know. I read various things on your internet before you returned to the house. Congratulations—not many species think to develop something like this."

"Thanks," Cloud muttered, a little overwhelmed. Sephiroth continued to wait and Cloud said, "Forget it. There isn't much to me. Aren't you curious about other things?"

"You are a writer."

Cloud's voice was aggressive. "Did you look me up?"

"No." Sephiroth gestured at the coffee table in front of the couch. One of Cloud's books was there—his own smiling face was in a corner of the back cover. "I read it."

"…Yeah?"

"You are a little heavy-handed with your plot devices but your characterization is solid."

"Okay." Cloud stood; this was just too surreal. He was out. "Sephiroth."

The alien met his gaze. It was so bizarre to address this thing and have it respond. "I need to sleep. What are you going to do?" Cloud couldn't stop him probably if Sephiroth decided to march on the world's leaders and destroy them but it would be nice to know. He could do—something.

"It will be some time before I am recuperated," Sephiroth said gravely, "I must find out why your planet crashed my ship."

Why Cloud's _planet_ crashed his ship…?

"If you're still around when I wake up, and this wasn't a nightmare, I'll see you then. Do you… need new clothes?"

"I would appreciate new pants."

Cloud got him some sweatpants (he was sure they'd end up looking like capris on a guy two and a half feet taller than him) and some underwear. He handed it over and turned to go back upstairs. On the final step he turned around to look at Sephiroth one last time. The alien was watching him, his mouth turned down in a frown.

He gingerly walked to his bed, avoiding broken glass. Cleaning could wait. Cloud stripped off his clothes and crawled naked into bed. He closed his eyes and dreamed nothing, just endless blackness like the void of space.

The sun was fully risen when Cloud stirred. For a moment everything seemed like a fuzzy dream… and then his shoulder throbbed, bringing it all back with horrible clarity. He got up and dressed quickly. As he descended the stairs he rubbed sleep out of his eyes. No one in the living room. Not in the kitchen. Not in the den, or out on the porch.

Cloud's imagination ran wild. If he was to turn on the news right now he'd see all kinds of destruction—Sephiroth was taking over his planet and Cloud had let his guard down and _slept_ , letting him walk out after gaining all kinds of information on humanity—

He found Sephiroth in the room where Cloud did his writing (or tried to). The computer, pushed aside, was replaced by a tiny light show.

Several small balls of light hovered over the desk. Some of them arced to others and drifted around, forming intricate patterns. Some twinkled blue, others greenish, others pink. Sephiroth touched one with his fingertip and it fizzled, sparking and shooting into ten little arcs. It must have made sense to him.

Spread out on the surface was some of Cloud's lined paper. Sephiroth had drawn several complicated diagrams that were scribbles to Cloud's eyes.

"Good morrow, home slice," the alien said without turning around.

"What?"

Sephiroth turned around, saw Cloud's expression. "Oh. Did my ipsuchip translate wrong? That happens. 'Good morning, ally.'"

"You really… want to make that clear, huh. That we're not enemies."

"Well, yes. I am millions of lightyears from my home, Cloud Strife. My ship is ruined. My weapons were destroyed in the impact. My communications are down, and something on this planet is sickening me. By some miracle I crashed away from civilization and have not been discovered by anyone other than you. It is very much in my best interests to make peace with you."

Sephiroth sounded more and more agitated as his little rant went on. He harshly jabbed at an orb, then swore— _Ggrleeble_ —as his arms transformed into tentacles. Thick, blue and yellow, they knocked Cloud's computer monitor to the floor (Cloud caught it, thankfully) and sent the papers askew.

"I am a scientist," he said softly. "This is not a military operation."

With human hands he took the monitor from Cloud and set it back in its spot. Cloud stood there, awkward. He didn't know what to say. This whole situation had to be pretty scary for Sephiroth too, now that he thought about it.

"You're going to figure out how to get home."

"Yes." Sephiroth sounded determined. "My original mission parameters still stand. I will investigate the anomaly that originally led me here as I am able while I rebuild my ship."

"An anomaly? Is something wrong with Gaia?"

Sephiroth's fingers wiggled in place as he considered something. He tapped an orb and slowly dragged it to the left. "What do you know of mako?" he asked finally.

Sephiroth's wing extended in the small space and herded Cloud close to Sephiroth's side like yesterday. It was strong. Cloud thought, "We refine it to produce electricity. It powers our homes, and we use mako to produce fuel for vehicles. I don't know where we'd be without it."

"Mako," Sephiroth said, "Or, more accurately, the energy produced from it, is the energy of the universe. Mako is alive."

He smiled slowly at Cloud's confused look. The sharp canines dimpled his lower lip. "I did research into the Cetra."

"They believe the planet is alive." In Midgar Cloud had been friends with a girl who believed in the Lifestream, a flow of energy inside and around Gaia. "It's juts religion, though."

"They are correct. Well, not about everything. But the unnaturally high mako reserves on this planet essentially make your Gaia an organism. Mako is an incredibly coveted resource in this galaxy, and those who can utilize it wield the power."

"Well, we refine it just fine in the reactors. So are we powerful?"

A grin that made Cloud's belly flip in terror, or excitement. "My species is the only one known in existence to be able to process raw mako inside our own bodies. The flow of the universe is ours."

Cloud reached out and touched a greenish orb. It sparked him and he jerked his hand back. It did not move. "You never answered my question," he said, "About whether something was wrong with Gaia."

Sephiroth's fingers flew. The colors danced like the aurora borealis and glittered like stars. "Something is siphoning off your planet's mako, and it isn't any of your reactors. And whatever it is, it's poisoning the life energy of your planet as it does it."

Cloud's planet was sick. "A parasite," he murmured.

"Aye, matey."

The situation was too somber for Cloud to chuckle at the sudden pirate accent.

"I was exploring this part of your galaxy when I discovered your planet. I was only in orbit for about a day when your planet reached out and disabled my thrusters." To himself, Sephiroth murmured, "This has never happened before. It registered me as a threat, and still does."

"You said it was sickening you."

"Yes," was the curt answer.

Cloud watched the hypnotizing light show a moment longer. Perhaps it was like typing. He belatedly realized he was leaning against the alien's shoulder, still cocooned in the wing. He stepped away and gently pushed at it until he was free. "I'm going to make breakfast. Do you, uh, eat?"

"Without access to regular transfusions of mako I must."

"Do you eat that big tank of it in your ship?"

"I _slept_ in that," he said, and sounded scandalized. "Let us hope it doesn't come to that. I will eat your human food."

Cloud retreated to the kitchen. It was full of his mother's touches still. The spices were where she liked them, with her favorites towards the front.

There were a million possible questions. Cloud focused on the easiest as he cooked, flipping bacon and scrambling eggs—what did Sephiroth's species eat when not in their usual form? As he heated leftover rice and poured them some juice he imagined the horrible gelatinous Sephiroth from yesterday plunging a cheeseburger into the depths of his body.

Humor was the only way he'd avoided a second mental breakdown, honestly.

Sephiroth gathered all the electricity balls into his hands and morphed them into one big one when Cloud told him to join him. It hovered on the desk; looking at it made Cloud uneasy. He awkwardly plated their food and settled in at the table across from Sephiroth.

It was… exceedingly bizarre doing something so normal with someone so strange. Sephiroth looked silly at the table with his knees bunched up and his wing taking up a portion of the room. The wall tile was yellowed and had a mini image of a basket of fruit in each square. Hideous.

Cloud demonstrated with the fork and scooped up some rice and egg. He chewed, Sephiroth's eyes lingering on his lips, and swallowed. "It tastes good to me," he said, a little defensive.

Sephiroth copied him. The fork looked silly in his huge hand. "Oh, Cloud," he said.

"What."

"This is—magnifique. Mag. Nifique. That language has many fun words. But _yes_ —what is this called?"

Cloud pointed at everything and told him, as Sephiroth sampled it all. "You would not believe the things I have had to eat in my lifetime," the alien said. He told Cloud a couple of them—wriggling bugs as big as this house, small balls of sentient carbon and sulfur, the equivalent of a sandwich but all innards of a great ocean beast on a giant of a planet three galaxies over. There were worms that simultaneously ate themselves and shat out a child, which would eat itself and shit out a new child every ten seconds. He'd eaten one of those.

"Have you been to lots of places?"

"Thousands."

"Bacon and eggs is really great compared to all that?"

"Some have had better. It is rare species have such sophisticated taste receptors, though, so eating as a human is enjoyable."

Cloud rudely watched Sephiroth eat for too long. It was fascinating. "On this planet we labeled M3A-6 I attended a feast. I had these long tubes running from my thorax to these pools of slime. It was polite for everyone to take the first sip together. That was probably the best food I have ever had… though Wutai…"

Sephiroth glanced to the side. He twirled his fork in the rice uselessly. "Wutai had good food as well," he finished.

Soon after Cloud said, "I just don't even know where to start. I have so many questions about you and what you've seen and what's out there."

"You will have time to ask them. The damage to my ship is worse than initially thought."

A few hours later Cloud poked his head into his office. Sephiroth was seated again, playing with the floating lights. He paused and looked down at his lap as Cloud leaned against the doorway.

"I believe I am having a belated reaction to realizing I am trapped on this planet," he said. "I would like to be left alone."

"Oh." Cloud took a step back. "Okay. Find me if you need me."

With Sephiroth occupied, Cloud had to entertain himself. What did he usually do? It was hard to remember. It was hard to remember what anything in his life had been like two days ago when he hadn't known about Sephiroth or other aliens. To be fair, he hadn't been doing much living anyway.

He laid around on the couch. He sat on the porch with his notebook. Like always, he got less than a paragraph written before he had to close it. Cloud went for a walk. He toured the edges of his property. Animals had once been here; he'd grown up alongside a dozen different ones, pigs and cows and chickens. All abandoned now.

The spaceship looked even weirder in the daytime. It didn't belong. It, like Sephiroth's multidimensional hair, looked like a different image slapped onto an existing one.

Still things everywhere. The fires were out, the embers having finally hit the dirt. Still the same hole in his property, and the same green sleeping tank.

Cloud wandered home and went to bed, because there wasn't much else to do.

* * *

"…am impressed…fortitude…"

"—other than a few instances of hostility—"

"…cross-referencing with the human internet… hair common in northern regions… very yellow…"

"…standards of beauty in his culture, he seems to align with quite a few ideals. His culture places emphasis on…"

"—I, at least, with my new human brain, find Cloud quite beautiful."

Sephiroth's voice was low and rumbly. Cloud had noticed that right away. The sound of it had only woken him up slightly despite being so close. Cloud's eyes opened fully as his brain registered the last bit.

"He is awake," Sephiroth narrated into the orb above his wrist. "Humans do not glow or shriek to signify this. The benefits of this are obvious. Cloud is rubbing his 'eyes' and looks unhappy." Sephiroth lowered his wrist an inch. "Cloud, are you unhappy?"

"What the fuck, Sephiroth," Cloud groaned. He melted boneless into the mattress. "Watching people while they sleep is creepy on Gaia."

"My apologies." Sephiroth looked a little chastened but he didn't leave. He was leant casually against the far wall.

"I'm not wearing any clothes," Cloud growled, "Get out."

Sephiroth tapped the orb. "Those in Cloud's culture are concerned about modesty—an interesting trait for a species to have. I was wondering why I transformed wearing 'pants' and a 'jacket' when they offer little additional defense."

Cloud got up on his knees to look more imposing, bunching the blankets around his waist. "I am sorry, Cloud," Sephiroth said, "But this is very exciting. Forgive me." To the wristband, "Cloud is embarrassed. Blood is rushing to his face and chest and his heart rate has spiked. The feelings he's broadcasting are confusing."

"Stop reading my mind!"

"I'm not," Sephiroth snapped. "I fail to see the value of the modesty coveted by those in this part of G-32x." He peeled back the elastic waistband of his borrowed pants and peered down, perhaps to see what Cloud was hiding.

"Ugh, no—"

Cloud's words cut off with a choke. Sephiroth had let go of the waistband but they crept down anyway. Something was slithering out of them.

A yellow and blue tentacle crept over the edge of the fabric. It pushed down, and another appeared. "Oh my god," Cloud said, when the fourth and final tentacle emerged.

Where Sephiroth's dick should have been was a cluster of four stubby tentacles. Each looked thinner than a normal dick but were about that long. Cloud laid back down in the bed, suddenly exhausted.

"That is _not_ what I have."

"No?"

"…No." Cloud rolled over, putting his back to Sephiroth. It was a risky thing. The alien had such unbelievable presence; the hair on the back of Cloud's neck stood on edge. After a moment the bed dipped.

"Cloud."

Cloud rolled over again. Sephiroth sat on the edge. When Cloud just watched him, a bit wary but not telling him to go away, he scooted closer and sat cross-legged. The tentacles had covered themselves back up.

"I am sorry," he said. "And I'm not sure what exactly I'm sorry for, but I feel regret regardless."

Cloud sighed. They sat and laid there for a long, awkward minute. "It's alright," Cloud eventually muttered. "You don't know how humans work, and I haven't taken much time to explain."

"No." Sephiroth's fingers turned to twisting tentacles and back. "It isn't your fault. I am… not good at this. At assimilating. My friends, Genesis and Angeal, they have always been the social ones. They would know what to do in this situation, even with the crash. I confess I am… lost."

Cloud actually felt bad for the guy. He reached out, touched his knee. "Yeah, well, me too. I never really thought about what I'd say to an alien. And I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not the best with people either."

The corner of Sephiroth's mouth quirked. "For the first few conversations between our species I feel they have gone rather badly."

Cloud snorted. "No kidding. We've been…freaking out so much it's like we're talking _at_ each other and not _to_ each other." Sephiroth glanced around the room, clearly struggling, so Cloud said, "Maybe we should start over."

"I would rather not have to relive the crash."

"Well, it's not like there's anything left to break in this place."

"…I am Sephiroth. I am a Jenovian. My home planet is Reunion. I am stranded on your planet and need help."

"I'm Cloud Strife. Human. Welcome to Gaia. I don't know how useful I'll be, but I want to help."

Sephiroth smiled. Cloud held out his hand, and after some gesturing Sephiroth took it.

Cloud lay on his side and propped his elbow on the mattress, hand supporting his head. "I want to know more about your species. I don't know much about you."

"We Jenovians are mighty," Sephiroth said. He sounded so proud. "Our empire spans H38104 to the outer reaches of W7702."

"Does everyone look like you?"

"We are all a million different forms between us at once—but when we are in our resting forms, yes, we look similar."

"It's really neat, the transforming."

"We are seamless copies of any species in the universe. It is indeed neat."

Cloud raised an eyebrow. "Seamless?"

Sephiroth seemed confused. "We look exactly alike."

Cloud laughed (and it felt good to do that). "Hell no we don't. Uh, wing."

Sephiroth looked unimpressed, so Cloud pointed out their other differences. He even shrugged mentally and palmed his cock, moving the blanket and showing him hey, no tentacles.

"Cloud. I have been creatures as big as your entire planet, and those as small as your germs. Some have had a million legs and others lived at the bottoms of oceans so deep the pressure would crack my ship's hull. I hardy notice these small differences."

 _Small differences._ Cloud had to laugh again. The guy just didn't get it. But if _he_ had been a thousand different creatures, maybe he wouldn't either.

Sephiroth told him about Reunion, his homeworld. Light shows, always. Mako rivers. Some of the most advanced technology in the universe. Paradise. He told him about Jenova, the very first of his kind.

"The entire universe trembled before her. She trailed destruction behind her… and laid the path for our empire to follow."

"What happened to her?"

"It is unknown. It is likely she is still exploring parts of the universe otherwise undiscovered." The smile in Sephiroth's voice, the pride in his eyes—he thought so much of her, a real member of the species elevated to battle-goddess in the years past her reign.

"Jenovians have a big military?"

"—Yes," Sephiroth said shortly. "Immensely strong."

"Is… Gaia in danger?"

"No. Not at this moment at any rate."

It was a foreboding answer. Cloud rolled onto his back, comfortable in his nakedness now (the guy was an alien—he didn't give a shit), and stared at the ceiling. What if instead of one ship, with one energy monster… there were thousands? And they were coming with the intent to kill?

"I have not always been a scientist," Sephiroth said. Cloud looked over.

"This is only my fifth expedition off-world in this capacity."

"But you've been to thousands of places?"

It took some time for Sephiroth to respond. "This is my fifth expedition that is not a military operation, where the goal of visiting is not to conquer the planet in Jenova's name."

There was not a whole lot Cloud could say to that. Sephiroth, sitting behind him, suddenly seemed bigger… his teeth sharper, his eyes more predatory, his wing demonic and not angelic.

"Guess that explains why you're so out of your depth."

"I am still figuring out what to do and how to interact with natives when I go places without orders to kill."

Cloud thought, _if things were a little bit different… I could have been killed when I investigated that crash._

Sephiroth's arms turned into long, suckered tentacles. Cloud jolted a bit as one draped across him for a moment before it shifted back to human arms. Cloud was starting to understand it happened when he was nervous or agitated. "Genesis and Angeal are very good with people. Those two have never had these problems I do when meeting new species." Cloud could hear what Sephiroth was not saying: _They would know what to do in this situation, and do it better than me._

The tentacles appeared and disappeared again. "I have talked enough. Tell me of your life, Cloud."

Cloud would have preferred to talk about anything other than his _life_. He rolled onto his stomach and pillowed his head on his folded arms. "Isn't much to it. I live here alone. Try to write. Ride my bike or the truck into town when I need things."

"Humans often life in familial units. Where is yours?"

"…My mom's dead. Died seven months ago. This was her house. I came back from the city to live here afterward. Dad abandoned us when I was a baby. I tracked him down to see if he'd come to her funeral but he told me to my face he didn't care about her, or me. So that's my family unit."

Sephiroth tapped the orb above his wrist, probably searching the internet to see what a funeral was and things like that. "Oh," he said, after a pause.

Then, in a testament to how hard he was trying to listen _to_ Cloud and not talk _at_ him as he tried to gather enough information to satisfy his own curiosity, he changed the subject.

"Why don't you tell me what it is like being human?"

They ate ice cream in dripping cones outside in the summer heat. The sun was setting. Sephiroth adored his dessert. Cloud told him about growing up here, in Nibelheim, when things were good. He'd been happier then. Cloud skipped over the tense years where he grew frustrated with Nibelheim and his small-town life and tried to join the military. He'd ran away and joined up anyway when his mom objected. Cloud told Sephiroth about Midgar, what it was like living in the biggest city on the continent. He skipped how he'd never actually made it into the military and was too embarrassed to come home and see his mother, too. And now she was dead, and he couldn't even if he wanted to.

There were so many wonderful things about being human, though. The oceans of Costa. Warm hot chocolate after snowboarding. Friendship (even though Cloud didn't have too many of those anymore). Sex. Puberty, as awkward as it was. The satisfying conclusion to a good mystery novel like the ones Cloud wrote, or had before his mom died and he realized he'd spent his whole life a coward.

And Sephiroth listened to him—he really did. He made comments and asked for clarification, and asked even more questions.

Cloud nearly fell asleep again out there, staring out at the inky black of the fields. He bade Sephiroth goodnight.

"Sleep good," Sephiroth said. It should have been _well_ but Cloud did not correct him. He smiled, growing fonder of the alien.

"Sleep good too."

The next morning Cloud tried to make a game plan. "So we've got big things to do. Fix the ship. Figure out this 'anomaly.' If Gaia is sick I want to help. And you've got something else."

Sephiroth looked up from his bowl of cereal.

"You're fixing my house."

"…Cloud. I know very little about human architecture—"

"You learn everything else pretty quickly. You read my entire book in like an hour. You already know the names of all Midgar's mayors. You can learn to fix some damn windows and the roof."

They frowned at each other. "Fine," Sephiroth said. "I'll fix your commorancy."

Cloud rolled his eyes; that time may have been intentional and not an ipsuchip glitch. "I'll get new windows from town and you can install them. You can sweep up the glass that's everywhere while I'm gone."

Sephiroth clearly thought the task was beneath him, but Cloud held firm. He agreed. The morning air was cool on their faces as they trudged out back to the second barn that was the garage. The sun warmed Cloud's face. The breeze held a promise of great heat later in the afternoon.

Fenrir, Cloud's motorcycle, was here. Currently the bike was undergoing some work—not because anything was wrong with him, but because Cloud's hands got restless with the lack of typing or penwriting these days.

Cloud climbed into the old pickup his mother must have driven into town by herself during all those years he was hiding from her in Midgar. He popped the hood and let Sephiroth look under it at the machinery. When he came around and leant into the cab he said, "…I am still learning to not be ethnocentric, and to judge each species on their own merits and not compare it to mine."

Cloud snorted at the passive-aggressive insult. He covered his hand with his mouth with his hand until the smile faded. "Yeah, okay, I get it, Jenovians are really advanced. I'll be back in a bit. Don't destroy my planet while I'm gone."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

Rumbling out of the barn, Cloud was on his way. Nibelheim proper was forty minutes away one way. Cloud rolled down the windows so the roar of the wind would distract him from his thoughts of his mother making this exact trip. The reactor in the distance grew larger and larger as he approached. Reactor towns—other than Midgar and Junon—weren't good for much. Cloud hated the people of Nibelheim. The older ones glared at him, the boy who'd abandoned his mother and was back now that she was dead.

He ran his errands quickly. Money from book sales paid for most things (Cloud was rather successful, and had a popular mystery trilogy about human experimentation and courtroom backstabbing). His mom paid off the large family home years ago, and Cloud only paid for food and utility bills.

At the grocery store Cloud wandered around more than usual. He'd been eating the same meals for the past seven months here. He used to enjoy cooking… he grabbed some new things for Sephiroth's sake. At a clothes store downtown he got Sephiroth some better fitting pants, and less-tight underwear too. Cloud thought of those four independently moving tentacles in Sephiroth's pants and chuckled to himself alone in the middle of the store.

The rest of Gaia was awake on the ride home. The sun warmed his left arm, resting on the windowframe. Cloud saw birds fly by in big flocks and small mammals on the plains scurry by. A bee buzzed into the cab and drifted off after a minute. Gaia was not just the humans' home. If the Jenovians _had_ come for war… there'd be a lot to answer for.

Sephiroth swept up the glass in his bedroom and picked everything else up off the floor in his absence. Some of it wasn't in the right spot, and some was moved… the alien snooped. Cloud didn't really mind. The guy was insatiable for everything human.

There was a lot to replacing a window, they learned. Sephiroth's fingers danced through electricity as Cloud watched how-to videos online. When they finished their research they somberly turned to each other, tools in hand.

The window trim and jamb extension had to be removed, same with the guide track. The tracks and jambs and stops all kind of looked the same to Cloud… Sephiroth, who had boasted the day before that nuclear physics was the stuff for infant Jenovians, quickly figured it out.

Cloud lounged on his bed and watched him work. He'd gone on those errands and done his duty for the day; he didn't have the spoons for much else.

"I do wish I could have gone with you," Sephiroth said.

"No you don't. Nibelheim sucks."

"But I am curious about human culture."

Cloud sighed. "Sorry. I know you are. Although you might think the differences between us aren't all that noticeable I promise you everyone in town would run screaming if they saw you."

"It would not be the first time."

Sephiroth's frequent narrations into his wrist computer amused Cloud. "Cloud has me doing menial tasks. I believe it is a ploy to stop me from returning home to Reunion. Perhaps Cloud is an undercover agent for the Behemoths I encountered on Q1x Alpha."

"Hey," Cloud called, "It's because _you're_ the asshole who crashed in my backyard and blew them out. It's your fault."

"Cloud has called me a colloquial term for the human part of the body that relaxes to allow waste to escape. I forgot to document the waste-removal process; it was quite traumatizing the first time."

Who knew, after everything, he'd be able to laugh this much? Who knew the being responsible wouldn't even be human?

As Sephiroth repaired Cloud's house over the next few days, they shared stories. Cloud told Sephiroth of his awkward first dates and the courtship rituals of those in this part of the world, which Sephiroth found 'fascinating.' Sephiroth had been birthed specifically for the military; it was all he knew.

Cloud saw the cold look in his eyes sometimes. Sephiroth's military background was all over him, even though his military was almost inconceivably different. War didn't change much.

Once Cloud brought Sephiroth lunch to find the guy naked, each of his dick tentacles holding a nail because he'd run out of hands. After nearly pissing himself Cloud held out a hand below them, and the tentacles released them into his palm.

"I didn't realize they were this, ah, dexterous."

"I've always most enjoyed transforming into species with tentacles. They feel much more familiar to me than these arms and legs."

One lazily curled around Cloud's finger. Cloud rubbed his thumb curiously over the small suckers, the size of the eraser on a pencil. They weren't sharp or rough—just soft, perhaps a little sticky.

Sephiroth sucked in a breath. "That feels—nice."

Cloud jerked away his hand, embarrassed. He'd forgotten that those were, well… dicks. Sephiroth's eyes were hot on him as he moved to the side, prepared to pass over the nails when requested. "Is this where your species has its sexual organs? Curious, then, the modesty surrounding these parts. Humans are fascinating."

"Shut up." Cloud held out a nail and gestured at the bookshelf Sephiroth was supposed to be fixing.

It was not all home repair, though. Sephiroth spent several hours a day making the lights dance around Cloud's home. He researched everything humans had on mako. Some of the earliest writings were about it. It had always been here, after all. While the vast majority sat undiscovered underground and was only accessible in the past half a millennium, when technology advanced far enough to mine and process it, there had always been natural mako springs around the globe.

Some cultures saw mako as an evil, poisonous force. There were many folktales about monsters and spirits that embodied its malice.

Others thought mako was the essence of the planet that would save them. Statues and shrines existed out there in the world to uphold its glory.

There were stories of those who had fallen into natural mako springs and died, and stories of those who had done so and survived—who had even come out healthier than before, or stronger, almost superhuman.

Cloud never thought much of mako. It was just… there. It was as normal as water or trees or oxygen. To think that it was on other planets too… to think it made his planet _alive,_ that it was the essence of energy, the elusive 'dark matter' scientists on this planet had been searching for for decades…

He liked to listen to it. Cloud didn't always know what to say. Sephiroth seemed to understand now that these revelations could be overwhelming to Cloud. Sometimes they'd stretch out on the couch (and Cloud kind of liked how Sephiroth's legs were so long; they always hung off the side Cloud was resting against) and Sephiroth would tell him everything he'd learned that day. Cloud would be quiet, processing this, occasionally making notes in his notebook. Sephiroth didn't press him for input if Cloud wasn't feeling it.

They spent time outside, at the ship. Sephiroth's favorite time of day to work on repairs was during sunset. They would eat an early dinner and go out there, working as the shadows got longer and the fields orange, then pinker, then bluer, and then black.

Cloud really wasn't much help at all considering the technology wasn't anything that would occur naturally on Gaia for another three thousand years (according to Sephiroth, anyway. Cloud took everything he said with a grain of salt, because he liked to show off more than Cloud was sure even he knew). So, as Sephiroth worked Cloud would spread out a blanket nearby and relax.

Sometimes he napped, and would wake when Sephiroth gently shook him. He'd kneel and crouch over Cloud, that hair draped over Cloud like all the stars in the universe were floating feet away. Sometimes Cloud read a book. He hadn't touched one in a long time, but Sephiroth was going through the books of his house during his 'waste disposal' time, and had recommended some of Cloud's own untouched books to him.

And sometimes… Cloud wrote.

The first time he finished a whole page in his notebook—a _whole_ page—Cloud had to put his pen down. He'd wandered away from the ship's wreckage and sat far out in the field by himself. He'd wrapped his arms around his shins and stayed there until the sun set over the mountains in the distance. Sephiroth had not commented on the dried tear tracks on Cloud's face, and had even experimented with baking to make Cloud dessert when they returned.

Three weeks after the crash, it was getting a little easier. Cloud lay on his stomach, knees bent up and his ankles locked in the air behind him. The notebook page was filled with scribbles and crossed-out sections, but there were three other filled pages before the current one. Occasionally Cloud looked up at Sephiroth and watched him as the words floating around in his head formed into coherent sentences.

Most of the time Sephiroth stayed in his human form as he tinkered with the ship. Tasks like picking up scattered metals and moving things could be done with human arms. When he got more technical though, and had to interact with what was left of the ship's fried mechanics, he transformed back into his regular form.

He was like that now, a giant jelly blob occasionally walking on countless tentacles back out of the ship and around it, but mostly staying inside. He was more clear than green now as he went through his mako stores and survived on human food.

Cloud focused his attention back on the notebook. He'd started a simple short story. It was about—surprise—an alien crash-landed on a strange and bizarre planet. It was from the point of view of the ship, though, feeling fear and pain on the impact, and loss as its inhabitant wandered away into the unknown landscape. It was silly and it was no-stress, which was the point. This wasn't going to his editor who still emailed him sometimes asking about the manuscript for his next novel. Not even Sephiroth would see it unless he snooped again, and Cloud would hide it well.

It was just for his eyes. Even that had seemed overwhelming these past seven months—writing anything at _all_ had gone from his life's passion to debilitating and anxiety-giving. So many things gave him no pleasure anymore.

The ship experienced separation anxiety and was pleased when its owner returned almost every day to perform repairs. Cloud reached the bottom of his page, closed the notebook, and wandered closer to the ship. It was getting too dark to keep writing anyway. He'd brought a small lantern with him once but the bugs were drawn to it and he'd gotten bitten.

(Sephiroth then transformed into a mosquito to yell at the bugs who had bit Cloud. Sephiroth returned with the wildest of stories—the bugs, not being very intelligent, didn't have any grasp of things like time or philosophy but they apparently had 'marvelous' views on the energy of the planet and the lifestream.)

Sephiroth was inside. Cloud ducked his head and climbed aboard. His worn sneakers slid on the harshly inverted floors. He scrabbled a bit and grabbed at a glossy black surface jutting out from the ceiling. "Hey, Sephiroth," he said, climbing back towards the tank. Sephiroth was there, in all his massive, circular glory. The back panels were removed all along the interior. The whole thing glittered and shifted, like Cloud was on LSD like in college again.

Sephiroth drifted towards him. It was kind of hypnotizing, watching all the tentacles appear and disappear, appear and disappear again. "Thought I'd check in and see how it's going."

Sephiroth got right up to him and Cloud let go of the thing he was clinging to, backing up a few feet. Sephiroth continued to approach, Cloud's neutral expression turning into a deep frown.

The outside of Sephiroth's body felt cool to the touch. Like gelatin when it's been sitting too long in the fridge and forms the tough, rubbery outside coating.

Then Cloud's hands plunged into Sephiroth's body as the alien got close, _too_ close. The rest of his body quickly followed as Sephiroth surged forward and swallowed him up.

Cloud almost said _what the fuck_ but bit it back before he could get lungfuls of alien ooze. When he realized he could breathe, after a couple seconds of holding his breath, he really did say it, "What the fuck?" It came out muffled and incomprehensible.

The breaths were shallow but he could make them. He floated, suspended in Sephiroth's body, as the alien exited the craft and scuttled back towards Cloud's blanket. He managed to turn over inside him, his hands swishing through like he was treading water. The electric pulses swimming inside Sephiroth raced away from his fingers; it was impossible to touch them.

Cloud wasn't sure how he knew it, but suddenly he was positive that the reason Sephiroth was evicting him from the craft was because if he touched any of those glowing panels in the back he'd be crispier than the crud on the bottom of the oven. He slid out of Sephiroth's body with a grotesque wet slop and landed on his blanket, dry as anything.

He stared up at the huge, looming alien. "Fine," he said. "Just hurry it up—I'm bored out here."

It was… hard to believe this thing was Sephiroth, the guy who was quickly becoming Cloud's friend. There was no way to nod but Cloud got a sense of: _alright._ A tentacle grew from the closest side of him and brushed against Cloud's cheek before he drifted back towards the craft.

"Bizarre," Cloud muttered, and wondered what the spaceship thought about all _that_.

Two days later Cloud finished his short story. It wasn't his best work, not even close, but it felt good to put in that last period of the last sentence. Cloud flipped to a new, fresh page and wandered in off the porch to the office where Sephiroth was making the lights dance, as usual.

"What's a good thing to write a short story about?"

"Capitalism," Sephiroth answered. "As far as economic systems go, that is one of the most heinous I've seen."

"I was thinking something a little more… lighthearted. I'll save the heavy topics for a novel."

"Romance, then."

"Yeah?" Cloud shuffled closer. Sephiroth's wing nabbed him as soon as he was close enough and pushed him close to the alien's side. Cloud wasn't sure if it was always conscious or not… but Sephiroth did that whenever possible. "Didn't think you were the romance novel type."

"I have been reading everything my brain cells can absorb," was the curt answer. Sephiroth harshly poked an orb and it exploded into dozens of beautiful, twinkling lights around the room. He waved his hand and they all coalesced again. "Some of it has been much better quality than others."

Cloud laughed, thinking of the cheap paperback romance novels his mom read when he was a kid. There was a box of them in the attic Cloud had gathered after the funeral. "Yeah, some things in the romance genre aren't so great. But that goes for any genre. I've read some terrible mysteries in my day."

"You are an author, Cloud," Sephiroth said (and the way he said _Cloud_ like _Cloud Strife_ was the only human on this planet always made Cloud feel funny). "Surely you think differently from some of the humans on this planet who are not authors."

"Maybe. I'm more creative than some, I guess. Or I was."

Sephiroth ignored that last sentence. "I would like it if you thought like an author for a moment."

"Okay." Cloud frowned and lowered his notebook. He idly brushed his fingers over the feathers of the wing. Big and broad and black. Soft. The flesh underneath was leathery and strong. "Shoot."

"Shoot," Sephiroth repeated. "Coot, Loot, Fruit. Pardon. Say this was one of your mystery novels. An alien has crashed. Part of this planet is rejecting him and rejects his spaceship—and this is unnatural. There is a parasite here, possibly something I have never encountered, and I am an expert. What is our first course of action?"

Cloud thought. His arm draped over Sephiroth's shoulders as he eyed the lights, still now that Sephiroth was focused on him instead. "We should… theorize about the nature of the parasite," he said after a moment. "That's the weird variable—everything hinges around that. We'll pick a course of action once we decide what it might be capable of."

"We know it is siphoning off mako."

"Is that mako going _to_ anything? Have you found evidence of high levels anywhere else on the planet?"

Sephiroth spent a few minutes fiddling with the lights. "There are some places with higher levels… but nothing abnormal, as far as I can tell. I would say that whatever it is… is storing this energy inside itself." Sephiroth sounded puzzled.

"Okay. What can do that?"

"Jenovians."

"…Yeah? And?"

"And Jenovians. I told you before—as far as we know, my species is the only one known in existence that can absorb mako, especially at these levels, and process it into energy."

"Is there any chance…?"

"No. I am the first Jenovian to explore this galaxy. Of this I am certain. There have been no mission logs, no data trails, nothing. I am the first."

"Okay." Sephiroth was agitated; his fingers turned into tentacles. Cloud worked his hand into the muscles of Sephiroth's right shoulder. He kneaded them and leant a little more of his weight against his side. "Maybe it's an unknown species then."

"Living in your planet's core? In your mantle somewhere? Poisoning your lifestream?"

"Maybe. What if it's storing the energy not inside its body but inside some kind of…box?"

"That would be a big box, Cloud."

"Work with me here. Some kind of container. If it really is some species—maybe more advanced than _you_ —it could be anything. Could be processing the energy into something else."

Sephiroth sighed. "It would be impossible to detect. I could scan for metals and compounds to make up this 'container' but the inside of your planet is rich in all of those. There would be no way to tell."

"Hey. Sephiroth, hey." Cloud got the alien's attention—he'd been frowning off to the side, a dangerous look in his eyes. "We got step one. The rest will become clearer, even if it's not clear right now."

"You are right. Thank you, Cloud."

"Yeah." Cloud squeezed Sephiroth's shoulder. He then gave a gentle tug, and Sephiroth abandoned his lights for the rest of the evening.

* * *

 _Part 2/9 of my Cloud's Birthday Week 2k16 challenge on tumblr. Thanks for everything, folks._


	2. Chapter 2

Cloud's romance story ran into difficulty after difficulty. First he hadn't been sure whether to make this a human story or a cute little story between objects. He eventually settled for a personified fork from the cutlery drawer and a soup ladle from the next drawer over. Tragic, it was—only seeing each other on certain meals. The ladle was jealous of the regular soup spoons the fork got to interact with. The fork was insecure about not being big and grand enough to match the ladle's impressive milliliter capacity.

The whole thing was fucking stupid, really.

But Cloud pushed through it anyway, because it was easy, and precisely because it was silly. Mystery novels, with complex characters and complex plots— _that_ was stressful. This was just to get his hand moving, and his brain too.

"I'm just…" Cloud sighed. "Not good at love scenes. It's hard enough considering the fork and ladle don't have lips to kiss with, or human body parts…"

"You have been very bad at answering my questions about it. I watched some of your human 'porn' yesterday."

Cloud groaned, but then he was laughing. "Tell me you didn't."

Sephiroth shrugged. "I did." He tapped his wrist computer, and out came a narration from the day before, clear as anything: _"The two humans have now shed their clothes. Human physiology is very curious. For all of the—relative—smarts that they possess, they lack protective exoskeletons, mandibles, or other parts with which to fight. They are soft, squishy, and vulnerable. Seeing them 'naked' makes this very much apparent. Humans also display sexual dimorphism in the aggregate although, of course, not every rule holds true. While many in Cloud's culture like to pretend that there are only two 'sexes,' scans of chromosomes and—"_

"Alright," Cloud said, smiling. He smiled so much now. Nestling back into his end of the couch and adjusting his legs, which he had spread out over Sephiroth's thighs, he said, "I get it. Did the porn do anything for you? Was it hot?"

"Mostly I wondered why the grating music and faked dialogue was necessary. Your species likes fake stories to go along with copulation."

"Some of them do, I guess. How do Jenovians have sex, then?"

"It involves a complicated and nuanced mixing of energies. We envelop each other and share experiences and sensations, past and present."

Cloud whistled (and in the back of his mind thought about how Sephiroth had carried him out of the spaceship that way a week previous). "Sounds intense. And like, does this happen between boys like you and girls only, or can you fool around with a same-sex partner?"

"Cloud." Sephiroth looked amused, but also slightly disapproving. "My species has existed for millennia longer than yours. We are different in ways that your brain cannot even comprehend. The hegemonic view in your culture is that there are only two genders. I let you refer to me with your male pronouns, but do not make the mistake of thinking that the Jenovians, in all our complexity, ascribe to your primitive views on gender."

"Oh." Cloud felt very small. "No, you're—you're right. It makes total sense that aliens would do things differently from us. That was kind of ethnocentric, huh?"

Sephiroth blinked hard at him with both sets of lids. "It… is okay. Reunion knows I've been making similar mistakes constantly since landing here."

"Are you sure it's okay using male pronouns with you? You want something more neutral, like 'they?'"

"No, it is fine. Whatever you first decided to give me would have been sufficient. Thank you for clarifying."

They smiled hesitantly at each other. What would have caused a big misunderstanding before could now be resolved fairly well. "So, Cloud," Sephiroth said, a lecherous look in his eye, "You enjoy human sex?"

"Can you stop referring to things as _human_ this or _human_ that? It sounds weird."

"No, because then I could be referring to the way Cactuars on 6TQ9 like to have sex, and believe me, that is quite different. You avoided my question."

"Well… yeah." Cloud moved his legs off Sephiroth's lap, tucked them closer to himself. "It's been a while though. Haven't dated in ages. I broke up with my last boyfriend a couple months before my mom died."

Sephiroth noted, his voice soft, "You don't often see other people."

"No," Cloud answered, and the loneliness made his voice even softer. "I don't."

Cloud finished his little romance story. It was ridiculous and awful but it made Sephiroth laugh. He'd started a tangent about ladle mating rituals and the socioeconomic implications of having so many forks in the drawer. He started another one about an old woman who lived alone and watched the neighbor's granddaughter walk to school every morning from her bedroom window, where she spent most of her time and would eventually die there, watching the sunrise over the tops of the Junon skyline like she did every morning. As the girl got older, and went from a toddler to a teenager, the woman felt like she knew the girl, though of course she didn't know her at all, of course.

He finished a long, stream-of-consciousness paragraph about how in her childhood she'd had the same itchy socks she'd been forced to wear as part of her school's uniform when someone knocked at his front door. It had been several months since that had happened.

Cautiously Cloud went downstairs. Sephiroth stuck his head out of the office, looking concerned. Cloud held a finger to his lips, and when Sephiroth didn't get the gesture he whispered, " _Be quiet."_

It could have been anybody, and yet… it was too much of a coincidence that someone was coming _now,_ a month after Sephiroth crashed into his field. The government? A secret government the regular government didn't know about?

They knocked again. Cloud straightened his clothes and hair and opened it.

"Oh, hey Mrs. Kisaragi."

It was his mother's lawyer. Cloud had seen lots of her in the days just before and after the funeral. Cloud was surprised to see her here.

The lawyer was older than Cloud, with a youthful face. She dressed smartly but clearly thought the suits and heels befitting an estate lawyer like her were uncomfortable and wore them loose and personalized. "Strife," she greeted kindly. "Got something for you you might like to see!"

The woman always seemed so bouncy, even when talking about his dead mother's personal effects. It helped, honestly.

She told him that they'd just discovered his mom had a security box at the Nibelheim bank. Its contents had to be inventoried by the bank but were delivered to him, the sole benefactor on every will and testament, every document his mother had owned.

When she left, headed back to town after a cup of coffee and an offered snack, Cloud took the box. He sat at the table and opened it up. Sephiroth poked his head in for a moment but left when he saw Cloud's expression.

Some valuables. A watch. Earrings. …The ring Cloud's father had given Cloud's mom. The man who had told Cloud straight out that he didn't care about her or him. Cloud turned it over, let the pinkish diamond catch the light. He slid it on his pinky finger, the only one it would fit on. He slid it back off and carefully put it down.

His mother's birth certificate. They'd put ink on the bottom of her tiny foot and pressed it to the paper. She'd lived well until a heart attack took her away.

In the bottom of the bin were some letters.

Cloud's letters from the military, during the two months when he was in training, waiting for the test to be formally accepted in.

 _Dear Mom,_

 _I made it to Midgar! I'm safe and sound. I'm staying in ShinRa temporary housing until the pre-test program begins next week. I know you're probably angry at me right now… I know you didn't want me to leave home. But I have to follow my dreams—I'll regret it the rest of my life if I don't try, I think. I just wanted to let you know that I'm here, and I'm safe. I'm going to work hard to make you proud of me._

 _I love you very much, and I'll write again soon,_

 _Cloud_

 _Dear Mom,_

 _The program started yesterday. In two months I'll see if I have what it takes to be part of the military. If I get accepted… my first paycheck will go entirely to you, I promise. Next week I_

Cloud couldn't read any more. Cloud stuffed it all into the box, pushed back his chair with a horrible squeak against the scuffed kitchen tiles, and went upstairs.

Cloud Strife barely got out of bed for the next four days.

Sephiroth worried about him, of course. Cloud slept most of the time. He closed his eyes and pretended he was asleep too, when the alien came inside his bedroom (the bedroom that used to be his mom's, before she died alone in this house, after years of being alone, after years of abandonment from the son she loved so much).

The alien brought him food. Cloud would roll over in bed and curl up and refuse to speak, childishly, when he did this. Sephiroth left him meals (he was becoming quite the cook) and Cloud would eat them when he left, because Sephiroth scolded him if he returned for the next meal and Cloud hadn't eaten.

On the fourth day Sephiroth quite literally dragged Cloud out of bed. His arms turned into two long, strong tentacles that wrapped around Cloud's shins and upper arms and carried him into the bathroom. "It is time for the human cleansing ritual," Sephiroth announced.

Sephiroth knew the word _shower_ and was acting extra _alien-y_ so Cloud wouldn't feel as upset knowing Sephiroth was forcing him to clean his ass. His hair was oily and stuck to his head and he stunk.

"I can do it," Cloud snapped, struggling.

Sephiroth stood on one leg, unimpressed, as the other shifted to a tentacle that turned on the shower water. Cloud gave up and waited quietly until Sephiroth put him down on his feet. His eyes looked sad.

"Cloud, I—"

"It's fine." Cloud's eyes cut to the side. It was an old woman's bathroom, with soaps decorated like small shells and pictures of dusty still-lifes or a cat. Soft lilac. "I'll shower. Thank you."

Sephiroth pursed his lips and nodded. He left.

Cloud dragged himself a full hour later back into bed, his skin scalded pink from the water, his throat hurting from rough sobs. He didn't stir until Sephiroth returned the next morning with breakfast.

On the fifth day, Cloud woke from a doze to find Sephiroth sitting on the edge of the bed. He wasn't looking at Cloud but at his own wrist. Cloud watched him for a while… Sephiroth always looked the same. He liked the clothes Cloud bought him in town (Cloud had returned once or twice to buy more) and had long, soft pants on today. He hardly ever wore a shirt, because cutting a hole in it for the wing and sewing on a hook and clasp to close it around it was more trouble than it was worth.

He glanced to the side and saw Cloud was awake. He said nothing and neither did Cloud. Cloud continued to just breathe, staring blankly out at him and Sephiroth continued researching whatever he was doing.

Eventually Sephiroth said, "Cloud."

"…Sephiroth."

"I performed a scan of your brain while you slept three days ago. The results were consistent with—"

" _Stop,_ " Cloud said. "Don't say it." He didn't want to hear the word _depression,_ he really, _really fucking didn't._

Sephiroth's lips flattened into a line again, like he was angry. He ducked his head. The orb over his wrist fizzled out into nothingness. He shifted so he was facing Cloud more, even alongside his hips, his long legs folded. He opened his mouth and closed it. Did it again. Growled in his throat in frustration at himself.

Finally he said, "…Cloud. Please tell me what is wrong. I… would very much like it if we could talk about this, and I could ease your burden somewhat." When Cloud stayed quiet he said, "You are my homie. You are the only one I know on this planet, and even more than that—you have been kind to me, and are the first true friend I have made off of my home world in all my years of exploring. Please do not be afraid to tell me anything, for I will not judge you."

Sephiroth was trying so hard. Cloud saw the compassion in those alien eyes, the earnestness in the set of his mouth and the genuine distress he felt in the anxious set of his wing and how his fingers transformed into ten stubby tentacles for a few seconds.

Cloud's exterior cracked slightly. He closed his eyes. "I just… I hate myself so fucking much, Seph."

"Why?"

His voice was close and so deep, thrumming with energy. It crackled around them, drew the answer from the cold and reluctant pit in Cloud's stomach. Cloud tucked his face into his elbow, tried not to sob. "I'm awful, Sephiroth. I'm—I'm the worst coward. Every second I spend in this house reminds me of it."

A hand fell to Cloud's spikes. A human hand, no tentacles. Cloud didn't mind. He turned his head into it slightly, and Sephiroth's thumb brushed sweaty bangs off his forehead. Sephiroth's silence was asking again, _why_?

"I abandoned my mom," Cloud rasped. "I ran away to join the military and _didn't even fucking get in_. I told her—I boasted about how I was gonna do it, how I was gonna make a name for myself, how I was gonna take care of her afterward. And I got so ashamed about it, get this:" Cloud opened his eyes, wiped stubborn tears away. "I didn't talk to her again for the rest of her fucking life."

Sephiroth didn't gasp or frown or berate him. He just tilted his head, eyes blinking horizontally and then vertically. Those slitted eyes fixed on his. "I couldn't get my head out of my ass enough to fess up and tell her that I failed. It was always, 'next year I'll finally talk to her again' and then 'maybe next year' and then she was fucking _dead,_ Sephiroth, and I won't get a chance, ever."

His mother had grown old in this home alone. Cloud's old bedroom wasn't even disturbed. That door stayed shut; Sephiroth hadn't even been in there, not that Cloud knew of. Those were years that could have been wonderful… Cloud should have told her all about being an author, about all of the stories he'd collected. Instead of joining the military he'd gotten a degree in creative writing at Midgar U. He'd dated his old friend Tifa for a few years and then an older man, Cid, a scientist at the aeronautics institute in Midgar who'd read one of his novels and come to a book signing.

At twenty-nine years of age Cloud had done a lot of living… and just under half of it had been spent ignoring his mother, of putting it off and trying to work up the courage to confess something that happened back when he was fifteen.

"May I touch you, Cloud?" Sephiroth asked quietly, stroking his hair.

Cloud acquiesced, not really caring either way, and Sephiroth stretched out on the bed. He guided Cloud's head to his incredibly broad, bare shoulder and wrapped one arm and one long tentacle around Cloud's torso. Cloud gripped his arm and the ridge of his wing and cried out all of this to Sephiroth.

The _worst_ part—the worst part of _all_ of it—wasn't even that Cloud had been too afraid to come clean to his mother. If his mom had given up on him in return that would have been easiest. He'd burned a bridge and deserved to have it crumble to ash behind him. But his mother had left her house, all her possessions, everything she owned in her will to _him_ , the shitty son.

"She deserved so much better than me."

That's all there was to it, really.

Cloud's breathing was shaky and irregular, wet and hiccuppy. Sephiroth rubbed his back and enveloped him with his wide, warm body. "All the time I'm just wishing—wishing I could be anybody else, someone stronger—w-who wasn't so petrified of something so fucking stupid. I _hate_ being me, Seph."

And that's all there was to _that_ , really.

Sephiroth held him until the worst of it subsided. Cloud's sobs and great body-wracking tremors subsided into small trembles and the occasional damp gasp. "There are several things I would like to say," he murmured into Cloud's hair. The words sounded clinical but the tone wasn't; Sephiroth sounded warm and earnest. "I have been many, many different people, as you know. I have learned that my past will haunt me no matter my form. Wutai, a small planet in a galaxy near the edge of the known universe—I single-handedly destroyed most of their population, Cloud, and that will be on my conscience until I eventually die. It follows me no matter my form or who I am."

Cloud just listened, wiping his aching eyes with the heels of his hand.

"You have done things you perceive as bad, things you regret. You will not get a chance to rectify those, it is true. But… I do not think you are a coward."

"Sure," Cloud said humorlessly. He remembered the few times his mom had sent letters that he'd been too anxious to open and ignored.

"You approached the site of my crash with a weapon in your hand and demanded to know what I was planning to do with your planet. I have seen species more mighty than yours, who are a dozen times more difficult to kill and a dozen times more intelligent—my apologies—tremble with fear before me, who wouldn't dare to do what you did. You haven't been subservient to me for a second since I landed. You have… taken care of me.

And if inaction is the thing that haunts you so—think about what you are doing now. Your planet is sick and you are the _only one of your species_ working to fix it, alongside me. We are going to save your planet."

"…We're going to save Gaia," Cloud repeated, his voice soft and breathy. Awestruck.

"Your mother wanted you to return home and live here… and you did. I believe that is something. And what if you had continued to run, and not moved back after her death?"

"I wouldn't have been there when you crashed."

"I may have died there if you hadn't dragged me back to the house. Whatever your planet did to my ship made it send out energy pulses that were killing me. I wouldn't have made any progress in repairs or discovering this anomaly. I may have…" Sephiroth breathed in deeply, his chest expanding underneath Cloud, "…Reverted to old methods in my despair and confusion. But you have calmed and put me in time out."

"…Time out?"

"Um. Grounded me. Kept my head, ah, level."

"Oh." Cloud couldn't help but chuckle weakly. Sephiroth had been so serious, and the topic was so serious… but now Cloud was thinking about Sephiroth sitting in a corner, his arms crossed, a petulant expression on his face.

"Me committing mass genocide again is not funny, Cloud," Sephiroth said.

Cloud laughed harder. "I'm sorry, Seph—it isn't, oh, Gaia, I'm sorry. I'm not sure why I'm laughing—ow, haha."

Cloud was a coward, but he was a coward who was doing something important now, with the parts of his life he had left. "I'm glad I was here to meet you," he said when they both settled. Cloud didn't need to be held now… but it was nice. He burrowed a little closer to the alien and Sephiroth easily accommodated him. Sephiroth answered that he was glad too.

The next day Cloud left his bedroom, eyeing Sephiroth's sleeping form (he'd passed out there after a few hours of lying there with Cloud and talking about Wutai and the things he'd done in his life) before slipping downstairs. He made breakfast for the both of them.

They were quiet in the morning. Everything seemed unnaturally still and soft in wake of all they'd discussed last night. Cloud's eyes were sore and occasionally he got flushes of embarrassment for revealing his soul like that to Sephiroth… but Sephiroth looked at him with no judgement at all. The dude was an alien—he simply didn't place the same value judgements on the things those in Cloud's culture did. He could empathize with Cloud but he didn't really feel the same way about all of Cloud's faults as Cloud… and it was freeing, it truly was. Not having them denied but… not being shamed further, or reminded of his faults at every turn.

They spent some time in the ship. Sephiroth climbed out with grave news: "Further repairs are going to be difficult while your planet continues to reject my species' technology. We must identify and remove this parasite before I am able to leave Gaia."

"Alright then," Cloud said. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, but he gathered his strength to do what had to be done. "Let's get to it."

* * *

Sephiroth's second month with Cloud went faster than the first. There was so much to do, although progress continued to be slow. Despite the planet's energy making things difficult, Sephiroth slowly pieced his ship back together. For the parts that were totally destroyed Cloud would drive into town and return with pieces of metal from the scrapyard. Once or twice he drove farther away, staying a night in an inn in the closest city before returning.

Cloud was glad for the occasional breather. After his mother's death his loneliness had been bad but being around people had been worse. He couldn't handle anyone else's presence. Sephiroth's, he found, he tolerated—even enjoyed, very much so. But sometimes Cloud still needed to get away for a little while. He'd return refreshed, and they would continue work.

Depression didn't magically go away after one night of talking it out. Cloud tried to talk about his mother and the life he'd led more often. Sephiroth was good about not pressing him too much but still gently coaxed it out of Cloud if he was reverting into himself or looked particularly down one day.

He read the letters to his mother all the way through and then re-read them. It always ached, but the sharp sting of his old words lessened with each repetition.

There were many signs his mother had not given up on him. He and Sephiroth went into his old bedroom. Cloud laid on his bed (now so small) and pointed out the posters, the knicknacks, the wooden practice swords he'd trained with his whole childhood (and a whole lot of good those hours had done him, huh).

The alien was very interested in early human development and socialization. He read Cloud's books and played with his toys. He was delighted to find Cloud's old porn stash, holding the magazines with a tentacle far out of Cloud's reach.

Once Cloud wrestled it back he flipped through them and sighed, "I can't believe I found this sexy."

All Sephiroth had to say, frowning at it all, was, "Huh."

They even found a well-loved copy of Cloud's second book, _Murder in Sector Three,_ in a box of his mother's things Cloud hadn't yet gone through.

It hurt, but he was healing.

They moved their center of operations from Cloud's cramped office to the kitchen table. With some creative uses of extension cords Cloud had his computer set up on one half.

"What would be the best place for the parasite to be?"

Sephiroth twirled the orb of light in lazy circles as he thought. "Someplace with easy access to huge quantities of mako. Natural springs, perhaps."

"Reactors?"

"The reactors are probably too recent."

"Some of them are built on top of natural mako reservoirs, though. What if it was… in a lake or pool and a reactor built up around it? Makes sense. Constant supply."

"Hmmm." Sephiroth spun an orb on his fingertip like a human would a basketball. "Wouldn't a human have found it?"

"…Yeah, good point. Hm. I don't know. I'll start looking for, I dunno, UFO sightings and alien stories."

Sephiroth said, with a snort, "Good luck."

Most of the stuff Cloud found was baloney. People went to great lengths to fake alien arrivals and corpses. Most were funny but some unsettled Cloud. He'd read the firsthand accounts to Sephiroth outside as he worked on the ship and Sephiroth would chuckle, then debunk it.

After easily hacking into ShinRa's databases Sephiroth combed the biggest company in the world's servers for anything. They were the ones who built the reactors and monitored the world's mako supplies, after all. Sephiroth spent several days reading everything, hacking into deeper and deeper secrets.

"They're talking about a 'calamity from the skies,'" Sephiroth murmured one night, half to himself. Cloud sat next to him, scooped up in his wing, reading one of his own old novels in an attempt to get his spark back. "Cloud."

"Hm?"

"I think they found something."

Cloud couldn't understand the fireworks in Sephiroth's lap so he translated. "They are being purposefully vague—like whatever this is is so secret they can't even mention it here, in their supposed secure files."

"Well what _does_ it say?"

"'Calamity from the skies,' over and over again. The word 'she,' and she's in a reactor. You were right."

"Maybe it really is an alien. I know you didn't think it was possible, but 'calamity from the skies?'"

Sephiroth was quiet for a time. "Let's focus on reactors."

They methodically went through them, starting with the closest in Nibelheim.

It was old, and had the ShinRa manor nearby. Suspicious, but then all the reactors were ShinRa-owned. Made sense the overseers had to stay somewhere. There were all sorts of freaky stories about it that Cloud heard since he was a kid, but it wasn't anything noteworthy. Claims of being mind-controlled on the premises or a man in red watching from the windows. Yawn.

They moved on. Each reactor in Midgar proper had a story. There were long, complicated histories of terrorism plots. The ones built first kept rumors of ghosts… and the newer ones were apparently built quickly, not necessarily to the same standards, and people had died creating them.

But nothing about aliens.

Gongaga had a reactor, but the folks there mostly left it alone. There was one in Junon, and outside Mideel, and a few others peppered over the continent. Nothing jumped out at either of them.

At the end of another frustrating week, they were back where they started. Chasing more alien rumors had also got them nowhere. Sephiroth and Cloud took a break for a few days. They even stopped working on the ship because they were both so stressed.

Cloud took Sephiroth for a drive. They kept to back roads, far from where people would look into the car and see a huge man with a wing. The plains stretched out before them, endless, and in the far distance the snowy peaks of the Nibel mountains. Sephiroth loved it. They spent the night out there, spreading out a blanket on the soft grasses in the field they stopped by. Sephiroth transformed into some hideous creature with bubbling black skin and roared so terribly it made Cloud's bones shake—but then every creature, even the bugs and spiders in the ground, fled and left them alone for the evening.

Cloud woke with Sephiroth's wing above him, cocooning him in soft, safe darkness. He rolled over to find Sephiroth watching him, some sparks of light floating impatiently nearby like he'd been fiddling with them and gotten distracted. "Humans sleep so peacefully," was all he'd say.

Cloud had to stop for gas in town (Sephiroth transformed into a bird and flew above Nibelheim as he did so, scoping it out and getting a look at the city for himself). Then Sephiroth drove back, insisting that if he could pilot a space ship he could safely drive Cloud's mother's truck.

He sucked. He gnashed the gears and hit the acceleration so hard they both jerked back into their seats each time. "You _crashed_ your space ship," Cloud reminded him, and got an unimpressed look in response.

Eventually he got the hang of it though, and returned them home. They spent that evening in, watching movies ("humans are so innovative, although these are terrible") on the old TV.

The next day they were back to business.

"We're thinking about this from the wrong angle," Sephiroth sighed, frustrated. "We must be. It must be somewhere. I can feel it."

Sephiroth got sick sometimes. He'd lie on the couch, nauseous, or get what he called a 'human migraine.' The planet did not like him, and its energy was 'foul,' he said.

Cloud pushed out his chair and began to pace in the kitchen. He tried to think hard, tried to focus like Leon Leonhart, the protagonist of his trilogy. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he said, "So we can't locate the anomaly."

"No. We know it exists, and that it's slowly draining your planet's mako and lifestream."

"And we're sure it's not something in space, yeah? Something in orbit?"

"I crashed while investigating that exact thing. No, whatever it is is on your planet's surface, or just below it."

"And we won't have any luck searching for a container?"

Sephiroth shook his head. "Not that I can see, Cloud."

"Argh." Cloud ran his fingers through his hair, sending the spikes even more askew. He saw the sink and stove; he pivoted and walked back towards the opposite wall. Sink and stove. Wall. Sink and stove.

"What if we look for where mako _isn't_?"

"Hm?" Sephiroth sighed and leant back in his chair.

"If there's something in a reactor, or floating in mako somewhere… why don't we look for irregularities? Scan for pockets of space inside mako where there _isn't_ mako. It could be a rock, or a giant air bubble, or it could be our anomaly."

If the thing was undetectable… looking for the _absence_ of the mako it supposedly floated in might point the way.

"We can try it." Sephiroth's tapped the lights and made them fizzle and glow. Jenovians were closely-tuned to mako; Cloud frowned as he waited for the results. "Looks like… four irregularities, just searching reactors." Cloud crossed his arms. Sephiroth continued, "Midgar reactors 3 and 6, Gongaga, and Nibelheim. Midgar 3 has dozens of small gaps… I imagine it is near a natural air vent and the mako is bubbling. Midgar 5 has something approximately 50 meters… perhaps a natural rock formation. That seems large. Gongaga, twisting spaces-" Sephiroth drew an S in the air with his finger, "But there are cave systems running underground in that area. In Nibelheim there is a space of about thirty meters by twenty meters. Very rectangular."

"Could be some reactor machinery."

"Then all of them would be likely to have it."

"Hmm… do you think it's worth checking out?"

"It may be. It is our first lead. And even if not, I will be able to get a better idea of how reactors work if I am there physically. I may even tap into your planet's energy myself."

"Is that safe?"

"No," Sephiroth said. "We can process mako directly inside ourselves, but only limited quantities at a time. My suspension tank in the ship—that is ideal. If I was to drop into a whole pool of it at once, I would be overwhelmed. I would likely die or go comatose. That is why I believe it is not a Jenovian."

"Makes sense." Really, things only made sort-of-sense, or half sense, but hardly ever total sense these days. Cloud was learning to roll with it. He and Sephiroth ate an early dinner and went to sleep, intending to leave in the middle of the night. It took Cloud a while to fall asleep. He thought of Sephiroth asleep on the couch a floor below, and hoped that he'd be okay the next day. If the anomaly turned out to be more powerful than them, or something they were unable to put a stop to… the planet may never stop rejecting Sephiroth and his ship. He may never go home.

Cloud wasn't so sure that he'd mind that. Sephiroth's presence was… great. Doing great things for him. But his alien friend would be devastated.

It was still on Cloud's mind later, during the drive into town. It was dark, and his headlights cut through the inkiness, revealing just sections of road at a time. Cloud wondered about space… if you needed a light to see where you were going, or if the lights of all those pinpricks in the distance would be enough. "Sephiroth," he murmured.

"Yes?"

"What if the anomaly attacks us?"

"Then I protect you. You have nothing to fear."

The way Sephiroth said it flipped Cloud's belly. "I'm guessing you're probably a pretty accomplished fighter. Your weapons are broken, though."

"I don't need them," Sephiroth bragged, "Jenovians are some of the fiercest warriors in the universe. Every part of our bodies can be turned into a weapon. From infancy we are trained for battle in order to live up to Jenova's legacy."

"She was really strong, huh…"

Sephiroth said simply, "The strongest."

No one was awake in Nibelheim. They stayed on the edges of town anyway. Cloud brought the truck to a stop when they hit the gate to ShinRa manor. The reactor was beyond it.

They didn't really have supplies. All they needed was Sephiroth, who was an arsenal of weapons and tech all his own, Cloud supposed. The mountain path was eerily still at this hour, and so dark… animals seemed to be staying away.

"I feel ill," Sephiroth said. "This is the right place."

Sephiroth picked Cloud up and launched them over the gate with a powerful jump. It was probably alarmed. They walked in tense silence past the manor (it gave Cloud the creeps) and to the reactor just beyond. Sephiroth stopped once to catch his breath, his hand pressed to his stomach. He was sweating. "My planet really hates you, huh," Cloud murmured as he rubbed his back, trying to crack a joke. Sephiroth just grunted.

The wrist computer easily hacked any locks and defense systems in the reactor. "Why didn't you do that on the gate?" Cloud asked.

"Perhaps I wanted to hold you. Also, I want to use this as little as possible. When I get home, I will have to justify every use to a board. They make sure expeditions—for science or exploration, not conquest—are ethical. A weak effort, considering."

They travelled inside. The reactor was tall and cold, mostly metal. There were grated steel walkways. Lights pulsed a dull red, guiding their way. "Down," Sephiroth told him.

They found creaky metal stairs and followed them down level after level until they hit the bottom. It was warmer down here… everything seemed to hum. If mako was the blood of the planet then this was one of its many hearts. It may have been Cloud's imagination but he swore he understood, that he could feel what Sephiroth felt, that he was connected to Gaia in a new way.

" _We're here to help,"_ he thought urgently.

They walked through long, foreboding hallways. Below their feet was an endless pool of green. It was just a couple dozen feet below. It made Cloud's arm hair stand on end. Sephiroth led them to a door marked MAXIMUM SECURITY. Admittance was restricted to only one Hojo from ShinRa and his immediate research team, according to a plaque on the door.

Sephiroth confidently raised his wrist to the complicated-looking electronic locks. His other arm transformed into a tentacle— _schlick_ —and back, betraying his nervousness. He went through first and Cloud followed, apprehensive.

The room was small and dark. More steps led down into it. They were in the mako now, this small room submerged in it. It must have been somewhere near the basement of the manor, too…this space was back in that direction.

One entire wall was thick glass. The green glow of mako illuminated the space. This had to be that displaced shape Sephiroth scanned before. There was an eerie buzzing in Cloud's ears. He shook his head to clear it.

Sephiroth went to a panel by the glass. There were buttons.

"Do you hear that?" Cloud asked. "That noise in your ears?"

Sephiroth didn't answer. He pressed a few buttons and then one marked DRAIN. A mechanical whine started beyond the glass, and then somewhere a pump started working. There was a tank pressed to the glass. It had been impossible to see, as it was filled with mako too, but now the levels on the top were lowering. It was maybe a meter wide.

"There's something in it, Seph." Cloud spoke loudly, over the buzzing that was turning to a hum. The water got lower, revealing mako-damp hair… silver. The top of a silvery forehead.

"Oh, no," Cloud heard Sephiroth breathe. Then the buzz turned to static, and a voice in Cloud's head. It wasn't audible but Cloud _felt_ it, like he'd felt Sephiroth communicating to him while he'd been inside his gelatinous form. **_Kill the human._**

Sephiroth did not. He stood there, frozen, staring at the thing in the tank as it drained fully. It was human… but no, not quite.

A humanoid shape, like a female's. She had hair like Sephiroth's. Organs, some human but most not—there were way too many—hung next to her. Blue and yellow tentacles left from her back to ports on the side of the tank to absorb mako.

 ** _Kill the human. Kneel, then obey._**

A nameplate on her head read JENOVA.

Something whirred and the tank descended out of sight.

"Sephiroth," Cloud said, at the immobile alien. A panel on the floor slid open, though, revealing the top of the tank. It raised up into the room, mako running in rivulets down the glass sides.

When it finished and the tank stilled, the silence was like death. "…This isn't possible," Sephiroth said.

The buzzing started again, spiked: **_Listen, hatchling!_**

"No!" Sephiroth yelled, _screamed_ it. He walked to the tank, suddenly seeming taller, lankier, more poisonous than Cloud remembered. His wing extended aggressively as he stood directly before it. "You," he said in a voice that made Cloud shudder, "Are supposed to be sailing the cosmos, laying waste to all you find, not locked up as an experiment for _humans_."

 ** _Listen to me._** It was weaker. Cloud pressed himself to the back wall as Sephiroth tapped his wrist. He narrated into the device, his voice rough with disbelief, "I have located the anomaly. It is… grotesque. It is an abomination, it is… shameful."

Jenova hung there. She had no arms. She stared straight ahead, matted hair in her face, one red eye glinting dully. She didn't move… she looked dead.

"I believe I am looking at Jenova. Yes. It may be an impostor, but the being before me is definitely a Jenovian. She has spent… thousands of years in the mako. Vitals are weak. There is only a spark of recognition. Her sway is nevertheless powerful—she has mind-control powers the Jenovians have not seen in all their days. She is attempting to command me to kill Cloud, probably thinking that another Jenovian is here to help."

That last sentence came out so _coldly._

Sephiroth was not here to help. He described the alien to the wrist computer, describing the sick, pulsing organs. "I do not know why she is here, I—I can only speculate. Perhaps her ship crashed as mine did, when humans were young. Direct contact with all this mako has left her…" Sephiroth's lip curled. He looked at her like Cloud had never seen him look at _anything_ , like Jenova was _garbage._ "Pathetic."

Cloud almost said something. He stayed quiet, until Sephiroth's voice said, "Cloud."

"I'm here, Seph."

"I do not want you to think lesser of my species for having come from someone like this. We are mighty… as she was, once. Or was that all a fabrication? It _could_ be—if what I'm staring at is what my species has descended from then _anything_ could be true."

Cloud barked, "Sephiroth!" The alien was sounding more and more like someone about to have a breakdown. Cloud strode forward to him, gripped his shoulder. "Calm down," he said. "I know this is a shock, but—"

One of Jenova's tentacles flicked weakly at him. Then again, with more purpose.

Sephiroth's left arm transformed into a tentacle of his own, big and menacing. It hardened, thinned out, resembled a sword. He stabbed it right through the tank. The glass shattered around their feet. Sephiroth jerked his arm to the side, cutting through Jenova's flesh and the suspended organs with a rip and a squelch.

The buzzing in Cloud's ears faded. The glinting red eye dulled further until it blinked out completely. Sephiroth cut again and again, hacked bits of the alien pooling on the floor along with mako and blueish blood.

"Get out of here, Cloud," Sephiroth growled. Cloud glared fiercely at him. "Not the reactor. Just past the door. I am going to burn her."

Sephiroth shrunk. His teeth grew huge, a foot long at least, dripping brownish sludge. It was a five-legged creature from a faraway planet that huffed a smoky breath in warning.

Cloud scrambled for the door, skidding on gore. The smell was terrible. Jenova was stagnant poison. He shut the door and then couldn't hear the sounds from inside the room. He hoped Sephiroth was okay.

His friend returned after a long twenty minutes. He was more or less human again. His arms switched from tentacles to arms and back so many times it made Cloud sick to look at. "We're getting out of here." Cloud spoke firmly.

Sephiroth didn't say anything as they left the reactor, nor on the way back to the car. Cloud didn't try to start a conversation. What did you say to a guy who just had his whole life changed like that? Jenovians grew up hearing about Jenova, how mighty she was, and to always kill in her name… the millennia of mako exposure had left her virtually comatose.

On the drive home Sephiroth tapped his wrist computer. He said simply, "I am so ashamed."

That was that. Cloud went to bed without hearing another peep from him. Cloud wasn't in tune with the planet; he couldn't feel anything. Gaia didn't suddenly seem brighter or more vibrant. The air wasn't clearer with the parasite gone. Cloud just didn't know. He hoped they weren't too late with taking Jenova out.

When Cloud came downstairs the next morning Sephiroth was on the couch, muttering into his wrist about Jenova. "The mako must have festered inside her for so long," He said, staring blankly at Cloud's turned-off television, "Slowly Jenova poisoned R-36x's lifestream. This explains why it was so hostile to Jenovian technology and crashed my ship."

Cloud gave him his space. He worked on Fenrir in the hot, stuffy barn for hours. He cleaned things that didn't need cleaning and re-worked a few electrical connections, trying to linger out there for as long as possible.

His stomach made him go back inside eventually. Sephiroth was in the living room, but not as his 'human' self… the gelatinous form took up half the space. The tentacles roiled like a choppy ocean on every surface of the sphere that was his body.

Was this his version of crying? Was he sulking? Sephiroth wasn't human, though he had a human brain now, most of the time. He didn't act in easily-understood ways.

Cloud grabbed a cup and went back outside. The field was hot and full of bugs that smacked against his bare shins as he trekked out to the crashed spaceship. A lot of work had been done in the past couple months. The scattered debris was gone. The ship was out of the ground and the smashed parts built whole again, or close to it.

Cloud entered it and climbed into the back. He'd seen Sephiroth open the tank there with a latch somewhere… there it was. The mako didn't spill out because it was a thick, tough jelly.

Cloud scooped some into the cup. It wasn't easy. It didn't want to separate, but Cloud worked a gloved hand into it and stubbornly pushed until some slopped out. It was slick and sticky on his fingers.

"Ugh," he muttered as he closed it back up.

He re-entered his house and walked up to the sullen tentacle ball. "Seph," Cloud said. No answer. Obviously—Sephiroth didn't have a mouth. Cloud pulled it out from behind his back. The mako jelly jiggled around inside. "It's your favorite snack," he said, rather awkwardly. "I want you to eat it."

The tentacles' appearing and reappearing slowed quite a bit. "C'mon," Cloud said, bumping the cup against him. Sephiroth had been without mako for so long he was just clear now, no green swirls.

"Don't make me, like, plunge this whole thing into you, 'cause I will. I don't care that you've slept in it."

After another awkward few moments Sephiroth transformed back into a human. It didn't startle Cloud as much as it used to. When Sephiroth stood before him again, leather jacket and wing and all, he laughed.

"There's a saying in the Jenovian military," he said as he accepted the cup with both hands. "It translates to… you know you've hit hard ass when you eat our sleeping solution."

"…Uh." Cloud tilted his head. "That only sort of made sense, sorry."

"Um. Pardon… you know you've hit 'rock bottom.' This is a foul drink, Cloud Strife."

"I don't care. You hit rock bottom yesterday, yeah? When you had to kill Jenova?" Sephiroth nodded stonily. "So you'll drink this, and move upwards from there."

The alien stared into the depths of the cup. "Do you have a straw?"

They didn't talk about it as Sephiroth slurped at his miserable goo. They instead sat on the couch and watched horrible ("just so fascinating, Cloud") television for so long Cloud's brain felt dulled and Sephiroth was in high spirits again.

They discussed what killing Jenova meant the next day, and the day after.

"I don't think I'll be telling anyone about this. Not even Angeal or Genesis."

"…No?"

"No. It probably seems cruel, Cloud, what I did. But you haven't heard us cheer her name or seen the monuments on Reunion in her honor. If _that_ was the real Jenova, a plaything of humans… it is heresy, Cloud. No Jenovian deserves to feel the betrayal I felt."

"I guess not."

Sephiroth's communications were down still, but he said he wasn't feeling as sick. Every dusk for the next two weeks was spent outside working on the ship. The alien told him about how they celebrated Jenova back home, with the equivalent of festivals and fanfare. It sounded…marvelous. Reunion really was a paradise. A war-obsessed one, but still—Sephiroth was so excited to go back.

"What are you brooding about, Cloud?"

Sephiroth loved using all sorts of new 'human verbs' and adjectives for Cloud's thinking expressions. The blond scowled. "Well, I was thinking that I'm going to miss you, but now I'm not so sure."

Sephiroth, who had poked his head out of the belly of the ship to make fun of him, came out all the way. He stepped close to Cloud, who leant against the side of the craft.

"I will miss you too," he said.

"Yeah." Cloud folded his arms and cut his eyes to the side. "It's just—you know I don't have any friends anymore, and how I don't see people, and—yeah. It's been really nice having you around, is what I'm saying."

Sephiroth's wing curled around him and tugged him close. Sephiroth had been doing that since the beginning, and Cloud loved it, though he'd never tell him that.

"You enjoy it when I do that," Sephiroth said, brushing him fondly with black feathers. Cloud nearly choked.

"Yeah, says who."

"Your feelings do," Sephiroth said flatly. "I can sense strong ones."

"That's right. Pretty cheap trick if you ask me."

Sephiroth ignored that. "You feel strongly about me in general."

Cloud said nothing. He turned his head, stared out at the field. It was dark, the blackness peppered only by fireflies, his own small galaxy.

Sephiroth's hand cupped his cheek. One finger turned into a stubby tentacle that tickled his cheekbone. He said softly, "I would like to human-kiss you."

"Just call it a kiss."

"No," Sephiroth said, and bent down. The brush of his lips was soft. They sealed against his in a gentle, searing smooch. He withdrew a bit, that long, forked tongue flicking out to taste Cloud's bottom lip.

Cloud gripped Sephiroth's waist. His breath puffed against the taller one's lips, dimpled slightly from the sharp points of his canines.

"…What's a Jenovian kiss like?"

"The concept doesn't exist. We have no mouths. So I am relishing this opportunity."

"Relish away."

Sephiroth did. His kisses were unskilled but passionate. Cloud held that big head between his hands and guided him. He pressed Sephiroth to the side of the ship, standing on his tiptoes to get that little bit closer to him. Arms turned to tentacles around him and lifted him up like he was nothing, cradling him close.

Oh, it was so _alien._ Cloud loved it.

He stroked that strange tongue with his own, licking into Sephiroth's mouth and exploring it like Sephiroth did solar systems. He tasted like stardust and fire, like the blasted remains of a once-powerful star—or, no, Sephiroth's mouth tasted like any other mouth, and Cloud was just being stupidly poetic in his daze.

Cloud hummed into Sephiroth's mouth and Sephiroth growled back, his whole chest rumbling with it. Cloud broke off and gave him wet open-mouthed kisses between deep, heaving breaths. His hands pushed Sephiroth's hair off his face, stroked his brow, and brushed over his nose, his lips.

" _Cloud._ " Sephiroth _loved_ saying Cloud's name; he said it all the time. He said it happily, said it in frustration. This was new, and it was dizzying.

"Let's go inside," Cloud said. "Is that okay?"

Sephiroth set him on his feet. His arms went back to normal. He said, "We can take a break from working on the ship."

Cloud caught lightning bugs in his hands on the way back. Five crawled ticklishly over his hands. Sephiroth started to shrink, disappearing until he was out of sight. Then a little lightning bug landed on Cloud's fingertip. It blinked green, not yellow.

"Cute," Cloud whispered, in case bugs had sensitive ear-parts. It spread its wings and took off.

Cloud went inside, knowing Sephiroth would eventually follow. He grabbed a shower, washing the dirt and grime off him from helping Sephiroth as much he could. When he got out the alien was human again and lounging on Cloud's bed in just his leather pants.

"Did you know that those bugs use their bioluminescence in order to attract mates?" he asked. "That was the most harrowing—harr-o-ing—twenty minutes I've had in a long time."

"I bet they loved that you glowed a different color. No mating with bugs, though."

"No. I am much more interested in mating with a human."

Sephiroth spoke lazily, his predatory eyes flicking over to him. He didn't get shy about the things one would expect. Cloud didn't blush but… dammit, his cheeks felt warm.

Cloud did not try to beat around the bush either. He slid onto Sephiroth's lap and shifted until comfortable. His loose pants and t-shirt stuck in places to his damp skin. Sephiroth's hands fell to his waist, gripping slightly, getting a feel for him. Then they slid, tantalizingly slowly, up his sides and chest… squeezing his shoulders…down his arms… and grabbing hold of Cloud's hands. Their fingers entwined easily, no nervous tentacles in sight.

"Human desire is a strange thing." On the _s_ his snake's tongue slipped out between his lips. Cloud chased it, shifting closer until their chests were flush, hips slotted together just so.

Sephiroth hadn't lacked confidence before and he was getting finesse now, as he stroked their tongues together. He swiped at Cloud's bottom lip with it and followed with gentle bites and nips of those sharp teeth.

Cloud squirmed on his lap, struggling with the urge to push Sephiroth down and fuck him. He hadn't had sex in so _long_ … but despite Sephiroth's mating comment that wasn't what this was. It wasn't a science experiment nor was it just a fuck… though Cloud was thrilled about it being partially both of those, too.

Something wriggled against Cloud's ass. Cloud hadn't forgotten for a damn second that Sephiroth didn't have genitals Cloud was used to. Cloud rocked his hips back against the playful tickle. He tweaked Sephiroth's pointed elf's ears and breathed, "You should take those pants off. I want to see you."

The alien fumbled a little in his haste to peel them off. Cloud smiled, loving the feelings he got from watching this eight-foot tall, broad, one-winged, absurdly powerful alien so eager to see what _human desire_ was all about. Sephiroth stood by the side of the bed and Cloud sat on the edge with his knees hanging over. He lifted his hands and Sephiroth walked closer, until Cloud's knees caged in his thighs.

Cloud looked up the length of Sephiroth's naked body, the alien's four tentacles brushing against his throat. There was so _much_ to him… the four nipples, the wing. The skin under Cloud's hands was warm but a bit rougher than what was typical. His physique was muscular but lean. It was overwhelming at first, but Cloud was used to the sight of Sephiroth now. He'd seen all of this before, even if just once.

Pressing a kiss just beneath Sephiroth's belly button, Cloud rubbed circles into Sephiroth's hipbones. The four tentacles were parted, curled around the sides of his throat now. If they squeezed they could have strangled him. They didn't though, flicking affectionately against his jaw and clavicle.

Backing up slightly, Cloud fell quiet as he observed them close-up. The four tentacles came from the same blueish knob of flesh where the base of a cock would be. They were all maybe six inches long. He gathered all four in his hand, gently pressing them together, and stroked from the knob to the tips. The tiny suckers dragged at his palm, a wonderful little sensation.

"You can feel this?" he clarified, as he did it again. He wiggled his fingers around and between them and they deftly twisted around the digits. Cloud wondered if it was possible for the alien to tie them in a knot.

Sephiroth's voice made his belly flutter. "Yes, I can feel it."

"Oh good," Cloud flirted. He ducked his head a couple inches, kissed one. It wasn't slick but there was the littlest bit of moisture on the tentacles. Cloud dragged his tongue over part of one, flat, then curled his tongue around it. Sephiroth made a soft noise. The tentacle receiving the attention was still but the others squirmed around.

After Cloud licked some more he commented, "These are fun."

One of the tentacles pushed Cloud's chin up to look at Sephiroth. The alien leant down, bending, bending until their mouths could press together greedily once more. Then Sephiroth dug his hands underneath Cloud's thighs, picked him up from his sitting position, and walked them up on his knees until he could deposit Cloud at the top of the bed. Sephiroth crawled over Cloud again and kissed him again.

The blond wound his arms around Sephiroth's neck. Making out with him was so _good_ —the alien was so big and there was so much to pay attention to, so many sensations. Cloud's zipper went down and the button popped. Cloud sighed into Sephiroth's mouth as he felt his aching cock come free of his underwear.

But—wait—Sephiroth's hands were here, one under his back and one cupping his head so— Cloud broke away to look, and Sephiroth hungrily descended on his neck. As those big canines nipped his neck Cloud gasped, half from that and half in surprise. Sephiroth's dicks were doing all that without him even looking. One pushed Cloud's briefs waistband down further, exposing his balls. One then played with them. The other two twirled around Cloud's length and moved, jerking him off.

"Oh, _shit,_ Sephiroth," Cloud moaned.

Kisses to his neck, his jaw, his mouth, and his cheeks came one after another. "I would like to remove your clothes," Sephiroth rasped at him.

During this Cloud felt strange. He was a specimen on a cold table under cruel lights, he was. But he wasn't. Sephiroth slowly removed his clothing and after each garment went away he inspected Cloud. He kissed his chest, poked ticklishly at his sides. When the pants went he pushed Cloud's legs up, testing the flexibility of humans' muscular-skeletal systems, and then pressed worshipful kisses to the backs of Cloud's knees. He licked at Cloud's cock and massaged his ass, his tongue dragging in curious circles around Cloud's asshole.

No one had paid Cloud this much attention in a long, long time. Cloud shivered, feeling so vulnerable and exposed like this. It was so damn hot.

"Humans are so soft," Sephiroth whispered after sucking a bruise onto Cloud's inner thigh. "And you taste delicious, Cloud. I could devour you."

Cloud moaned weakly. He'd had a plan—he was going to dominate the alien, show him a good time, what humans could do. But Sephiroth scrambled his brains. He wanted to be devoured.

He reached out and tugged Sephiroth close again. He kissed him long and hard, wrapping his legs around his waist. The tentacles spread out against him, exploring and petting, touching and pushing. "You've gotta get those inside me," Cloud drawled. "Like right now."

He moved before Sephiroth could actually try to just stick one in him. He crawled to the edge of the bed and grabbed lube from the drawer. He only ever used it on his own toys these days. Sephiroth's wing curled around him and yanked him back into his arms.

"Every time," Sephiroth chuckled. "You love it."

The feathers were so soft against his bare, sensitized skin. Cloud grunted and pushed the wing away though. He laid down, hiked up his knees, and irritably said, "Help me out."

The wing folded neatly against Sephiroth's back as Sephiroth crawled in close. It was still so big and took up so much space. Cloud dribbled lube on his fingers and gripped two of Sephiroth's, getting them slick too. He circled his hole with his pointer, loving the way Sephiroth's eyes stuck to the scene before him.

"When I watched the porn," Sephiroth said as Cloud slid the finger inside, "I was initially surprised to find humans enjoy penetration up the waste—"

"Shut up."

"I merely—"

"Shut up," Cloud said again. To distract Sephiroth from saying the rest of that goddamn sentence he pulled Sephiroth's hand closer and bumped the tip of his finger against his entrance. "Not too rough. It's a delicate area."

Sephiroth pushed in and Cloud, with a small hitch of his breath, added his own finger again. They loosened Cloud up together. It was…more intimate a thing than Cloud had been expecting. Sephiroth just couldn't keep his hands off him.

Cloud's cock oozed a thick, sticky drop of pre-come. Sephiroth ducked his head and licked it off with that rough, forked tongue. "Okay, okay," He said when Sephiroth enthusiastically started sucking on the head of his cock. He eyed the four tentacles, wigging, impatient to get inside of him.

"I can take two of those," he said. "Only one to start. Three if I was wasted."

"Wasted. You are _not_ garbage, Cloud."

"I meant really, really drunk. Come here."

Cloud flipped over onto his hands and knees. He peered back at Sephiroth, who slicked up his tentacles. It was weird seeing him stroke them. They weren't hard and stiff like human dicks. He could point them straight, but it was a conscious thing.

"Try to keep them mostly rigid," he said, suddenly a little nervous. "If you try to—turn them all over or twist into knots, uh, you could puncture something."

Sephiroth's hands settled on his ass. "I will be careful with you."

Cloud's cock twitched. He knew that Sephiroth would be. Thighs pressed against the lower curve of his asscheeks. Cloud relaxed, going down to his elbows, breathing steadily as he waited. It came, of course—it felt like a lick but wasn't. One of Sephiroth's tentacles dragged up from the base of his balls, hanging heavy between his legs, up on his perineum and past his asshole. It positioned itself, something no human dick could do, and pushed inside as Sephiroth moved his hips forward. He stopped when their hips were snug. Sephiroth bent over him.

Cloud let out a slightly dazed moan. He shifted his hips slightly and felt it shift inside him. It didn't feel like anything Cloud had experienced before. "Are you okay?" he asked. "It feels good?"

"Oh, Cloud," was the only answer. So Cloud moved a little, rolling his hips to get it moving inside him.

Sephiroth got the idea. He held Cloud's ass in place and moved his hips too, trying out thrusts until he figured out how it would all work. Then, with more confidence, he fucked forward until Cloud took the full length of the tentacle. Then again. And again.

The other three splayed out against his skin every time Sephiroth went in deep. It was all just so—just so _alien,_ and so, so, _so_ hot because of it. The thing fucking Cloud wasn't human and that made his blood pulse faster.

"Add another one," Cloud gasped. One, the size of only two fingers, was too teasing. He flipped over onto his back. Sephiroth's dazzling hair spilled over his shoulders as he bent over Cloud. It glowed more than the singular lightbulb in the lamp over on the dresser did. Cloud tenderly raked it out of Sephiroth's face as the alien positioned them and lined back up.

First one, and then another—they stretched Cloud full now. The lubed tentacles twisted around each other at times and at others fucked Cloud side-by-side. Cloud hugged Sephiroth with his legs and cupped his face in his hands, kissing him until he was breathless, parting for some desperate gasps of oxygen and going back to it.

One tentacle wriggled inside of Cloud as if searching, and then Cloud arched off the bed as the tip of it brushed the area that stimulated his prostate. "Right there, Seph," he gasped.

Sephiroth buried his face in Cloud's neck. He breathed in deeply. "I did some research into your human anatomy. You like that?"

Cloud liking it was obvious. They fucked fast and delicious, Sephiroth's powerful arms shaking from it. He lowered to his elbows, his chest pressing closer to Cloud's.

The pace slowed. Sephiroth kissed Cloud's neck, reverent. Cloud laid there, his hands in Sephiroth's hair, his eyes closed. They focused on the sensations. The lighting seemed softer, the darkness outside blacker, the room they were in smaller. The casual sex—if it had ever been that—was turning into something else.

The tentacles inside Cloud… oh, that was good. They were slick and the tiny suckers were a wonderful texture near his prostate. Being _inside_ Cloud… also good. The human was soft and hot and tight. This wasn't something Jenovians could do.

Cloud held him. He muttered praise and encouragement into his friend's hair. The hip rolls were sinful, Sephiroth's lower half flexing. The two tentacles not inside Cloud were wrapped around his cock. With genitals like those Sephiroth could easily please several people at once yet here Cloud was, having him all to himself.

Eventually Sephiroth raised his head. He stared down with his luminous green eyes. He opened his mouth, closed it. Tried again. Looked awkwardly off to the side.

Cloud didn't try to hurry up whatever he was trying to say. Sephiroth tapped the band he always wore around his wrist. A small sphere of light hovered next to his face.

He said, "I don't want to forget this moment." Cloud's breath caught beneath him.

"Cloud is fragile," Sephiroth continued. He didn't look at Cloud. Maybe he couldn't. His hips continued to work, slowly filling Cloud again and again. "Not for a human. He is actually rather hardy compared to most of them. But for me… I cannot help but think of all the harm I have done to others as I touch him. He is making a face. I do not think he cares about that."

"He doesn't," Cloud said, sighing as the tentacles pushed inside him just right.

"Human sex—" Sephiroth punctuated this with a deep thrust, "Is quite unlike anything I have experienced before. Jenovians, of course, can do nothing like this." His breath huffed warm on the hollow of Cloud's throat.

"The feeling of performing human sex with _Cloud_ , though… is indescribable. So I won't try. I hope that, whenever I listen to this again in the future, I still remember what this feels like."

Sephiroth pushed up on his arms again to describe Cloud in lewd detail to his audio diary. He mentioned the blush on his cheeks and chest, Cloud's expression, his cock bouncing between his legs, and the sight of his hole stretched around the widest parts of the two tentacles.

"I have not known Cloud long," Sephiroth murmured. His voice was everywhere. He ducked his face, unable to look at Cloud again. "But I believe I human-love him. Or I am coming to. The concept doesn't exist in the same way for Jenovians, but I Jenovian-love him too. In all my explorations to thousands of planets I have never forged a companionship quite like his. Ending entry."

The orb went out, glittering like the fireworks that fizzled and crackled at the end. His hips moved faster, the alien's breath more labored now.

Cloud pulled his head up and kissed him. "Too shy to say that to my face, huh?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. I am merely recording my thoughts so that I may—"

Chuckling, Cloud took pity and kissed him again. He pushed and Sephiroth let himself be maneuvered into a sitting position. Cloud hugged his neck and rose up, dropping down with a grunt of satisfaction. Sephiroth probably could have supported his weight in his arms and raised and lowered Cloud himself, but Cloud wanted to get them both there. He sat back instead, running reverent hands over Cloud's naked body as the blond rode his cocks.

The one tentacle continued to find the spot that made him see stars, faster until Cloud thought he'd implode from it, like a real star. He moaned shakily as he came, the hand between their bodies quickly working his dick as cum shot out onto Sephiroth's chest. He continued to ride Sephiroth through the trembles, clenching his ass.

Sephiroth looked at Cloud like he'd hung the sun. He choked out, "Cloud, I—" and then he inhaled, cutting himself off. His human arms turned into long, thick tentacles that wound around Cloud's body twice each, like rope. They held him utterly still while Sephiroth's head fell to Cloud's shoulder.

The dampness shot out all over Cloud's tummy, ass and thighs. There was so _much_ —the tentacles not inside Cloud coated him in a greenish but see-through substance. It was stickier than cum. Cloud felt some leak out of him; there was just too much from the tentacles up his ass.

Cloud moaned weakly. His spent cock twitched, slick with his own mess and now the alien's too.

The limbs around him shifted back to arms. They cradled Cloud and held him with the utmost care as the two tentacles slipped out of him, along with thick dribbles of greenish goo.

Cloud panted, the words slow and clumsy around his tongue, "I didn't know—that you had anything like that in you."

"Me neither," was Sephiroth's answer. "How do you feel?"

"Pre'y good," came the slurred answer. Cloud's whole body buzzed. He slumped on top of Sephiroth, suddenly lacking the strength to hold himself upright.

"Oh dear."

Sephiroth rearranged them, lying down with Cloud cradled half on his body, half on the wing. "Cloud. This should fade in a minute or two."

Cloud was starting to understand what Sephiroth was talking about. He felt a little dizzy, and between blinks Sephiroth appeared twice. "Am I… high?"

"In our natural forms Jenovians can release a fluid that incapacitates other species to a certain degree. It makes them lethargic and, hm. _Lackadaisical._ Intoxicated. Muddled. Silly—"

"I get it," Cloud muttered, "Let me enjoy this."

Sephiroth's wing pressed affectionately against him. He ran his fingers through Cloud's hair and rubbed his thumb over the jut of his hipbone until Cloud's buzz cleared a little bit. They were both so terribly messy, Cloud especially so. The blond felt like his bed was floating, or orbiting something big out there, somewhere.

A couple minutes later, as Sephiroth predicted, Cloud was almost back to normal.

"That would have been nice to know about beforehand if either of us knew about it, but that was hot as hell."

"Yeah?" Sephiroth turned his head and kissed the top of Cloud's head. He was _so_ kissy; he'd been into human mouths as soon as he'd gotten his.

Cloud grabbed the side of his face, turned Sephiroth to face him, and gave him a sloppy kiss. This alien was ridiculous.

"Gotta clean up," he grunted, and wriggled until Sephiroth moved the wing and he could climb off the bed. By now semen would have been cool and tacky, but whatever Sephiroth had shot from all four tentacles was still fairly warm on his skin. It oozed down one leg as Cloud stood straight. "I'm a mess."

Sephiroth's tentacles flicked lazily in his direction. He said, a smirk playing around his mouth, "Looks good on you."

The alien joined him in the middle of his second shower of the day. Cloud worked soap into the wing, loving the feel of the damp feathers under his fingers. Natural oils made most of it slide right off. Cloud toweled them both, enjoying the chance to explore Sephiroth's body a bit more. After changing the sheets they settled down together.

Cloud preferred spooning on the outside, but that wasn't really possible with the wing. As he guided Sephiroth's arm around his waist he said softly, "I wanted to do that for a while."

"Really?"

"Mm. I've been, uh, thinking about your…"

"Tentacles?"

"…Yeah. Ever since I saw them. I mean, it's a pretty common fantasy for humans, actually?"

"Oh?" Sephiroth looked intrigued.

Snorting, Cloud said, "Yeah." Then, more awkwardly, "and I mean… you've become really important to me, too. So…"

Both of them lay in strained silence for a minute. There was some proper response, somewhere, to everything Sephiroth said into his computer. Cloud was good with his words, as most authors were, but he couldn't find it.

"Let's get some shut-eye," he said. Sephiroth tucked himself in snug behind Cloud. Maybe they didn't have to say it in well-written prose out loud like that.

Instead, Cloud showed Sephiroth he meant the same in the early morning, when he used his fingers and tongue to ease him open. He fucked Sephiroth with the alien on his stomach, head pillowed on his arms, wing trembling every time Cloud snapped his hips forward. The rising sun looked dazzling on the sheen of his skin.

Hours later, after a late breakfast, Cloud pushed the alien onto the couch and kissed him until his lips were puffy and sore from those sharp canines. Although the words banged at the backs of his teeth trying to get out Cloud didn't let them—when they eventually made it outside to the ship though Cloud felt them hard: _I don't really want you to leave._

There wasn't much work left to be done.

The goal, Sephiroth told him, was not to repair the craft to the point where it could survive faster-than-light travel back to Reunion. No, he merely had to get far enough away from Gaia to signal back home for help where human satellites wouldn't detect it. It was risky… but Cloud figured Sephiroth knew what he was doing.

He effortlessly repurposed and reused things. The ship was smaller now, as Sephiroth deconstructed non-vital parts. He worked on it tirelessly for a few days while constantly listening to the planet, waiting for its reaction.

On the fourth day, it spoke.

Sephiroth dropped his fork onto the dining table with a clatter in the middle of taking a bite. He stared unseeingly at Cloud across from him. His eyes flared green— _all_ green, mako-bright.

"—Oh, Cloud!" Sephiroth exclaimed when it faded out and he came back to himself.

"What? What's happening?"

"Come on."

Sephiroth hurried from the table. Cloud followed him outside and then across the field. As they jogged Sephiroth told him that the ever-present nausea he'd been experiencing was gone. At the ship Sephiroth raised a hand, dissolving the side panel, newly-fixed. He scrambled to the front, bolts of light arcing from his fingertips. The air in the space seemed to hum, to throb, and Sephiroth said, " _Come on"_ — and then the power in the ship turned on.

Lights in the walls that Cloud hadn't known were there shone brightly. Images flashed over the ceiling from one side to the other in gorgeous colors. Every inch of the craft glowed or buzzed with energy as sparks flew around Sephiroth's head and hands.

Cloud had to step out; it was too much for his eyes. The craft rumbled loudly (Cloud covered his ears) and rose a couple of feet into the air before settling. When Sephiroth climbed out he looked joyous. "Your planet has ceased attacking my technology."

"It knows what you did."

"What we did," he corrected. "Your planet knows of your involvement in this, believe me. You are its savior."

Cloud flushed, turning to look out at the field. He bent and patted the ground with his fingertips. "You're welcome," he murmured. "I was glad to help."

The ship hummed and shot multicolored lights into the air above it for the next couple days. Sephiroth spent most of his time in his gelatinous form, performing technical repairs that just weren't possible in a mostly human body.

His skin and kind eyes and soft lips returned at bedtime though, without fail. He and Cloud spent lots of time together physically, cuddling or kissing or fucking. There wasn't much time left. They had lazy sex in the morning with Sephiroth spooned behind Cloud and two tentacles buried in his ass. They had rough, fun, adventurous sex where Cloud pushed Sephiroth around before pounding him and the alien gladly let him do it all. They had lots of tender, bittersweet sex where they absorbed and catalogued as much as they could of each other before they no longer could.

It was only two weeks from when the power came back on to when Sephiroth planned to leave, however. Things changed so much for them so close to the end… it was cruel, but there wasn't much Cloud could do. The evening after the lights sang in the ship, every surface glowing, the static making Cloud's hair lift comically even twenty feet away (the ship was ready to go, it was _done_ ), they went for a drive.

Sephiroth saw all this scenery before. He kept his eyes on it though. They removed the door of the truck so his wing wouldn't be as cramped. They were both silent for a long time, so long that the silence went from comfortable to awkward and then suffocating, like the hot, stagnant summer air that descended on the fields during the day.

Sephiroth eventually broke it. "I would like to confess something," he said.

"…Yeah?"

There were a thousand different things Sephiroth could say in the next moment. Cloud kept his mind blank so he wouldn't torture himself with guessing.

"Yes. I have not been entirely honest with you about the reason why I am here." Cloud waited patiently. Sephiroth continued, after a sigh, "As you know, after I left the military I became a scientist, sending information about mako-rich planets back to Reunion. However… we don't just explore the universe looking for these planets for our own knowledge. I've explained how valuable a resource mako is. Those who control it control the galaxy."

"…So you were here to control Gaia."

"To find a mako-rich planet and report back that we should conquer it." The pause after his words was heavy. "But Cloud—I am going to lie. I will say that R-36x has no mako reserves and that all future Jenovians should leave it alone. My word is as good as law to others of my species. Your planet will never have to fear us."

"When did you change your mind?"

"You were kind to me, Cloud—you became the first friend I've ever made off my home planet. I decided then. And now—what I feel for you goes beyond human friendship. I couldn't."

"…It makes sense," Cloud muttered. "I was wondering why exactly you were _here_. Floating through this area of space and investigating that 'anomaly' seemed a little… too convenient."

"I'm sorry for keeping that from you."

"Why tell me now? It could have stayed your secret."

"I wanted to ask you if, even knowing that, and knowing all that I've done… if you want me to come back for you."

Cloud's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "What?"

"I have to go get a new ship and deliver my mission report, and replenish mako stores. Genesis and Angeal are undoubtedly worried about me because my communications ceased. But afterwards… once I get a new ship, and the freedom to travel on my own again… I can come back, if you'd wish. Perhaps bring you with me."

"Seph." Cloud's voice trembled slightly. "You live for millennia. I've got, like… another seventy years left, maybe. I don't understand why you'd want…"

"You will only live for a fraction of my life, it's true. But I think that it will be the best fraction out of all of it."

Cloud gave him his answer late that night as his head swam from the alien semen inside him and dripping down over his thighs. "Yes," he said, dropping his sweaty forehead to Sephiroth's shoulder. "Come back for me, alright?"

The alien cradled him in his wing and kissed all over his face. "I will," he promised.

It wasn't safe for Cloud to be right next to the ship as it took off that morning. It was still dark out; neither had slept.

"How long will you be?" Cloud asked as he kissed Sephiroth goodbye on his front porch. "A couple years?"

"Space and time work differently than you think they do," was the answer. "I can't give you an exact estimate, but it will be sooner than you think."

"Okay. I'll see you soon, then. Be safe, alright? No genocide. Don't dwell on Jenova. She's gone."

"I won't. Spend time thinking about your mother. You need to be happier again."

"I'll try." Cloud exhaled slowly, running his gaze from the top of Sephiroth's head to his boots. "Are you sure you'll be able to find your way back someday?"

Sephiroth nodded. "Very. You are the brightest star in this universe. It will be impossible for me not to find you, Cloud."

They stared at each other, then went in for a last kiss. "Bye, Seph."

"Fare thee well, dawg."

Cloud shut the door on him to stop himself from watching until the spaceship turned into the slightest pinprick of light before it disappeared entirely.

* * *

Nibel winters were brutal. While the summers got fairly hot it was impossible to farm anything from the tail end of fall to mid-spring. They were in the thick of it now… Cloud Strife's farm was buried under a couple feet of snow. Cold wind howled outside and through the cracks of the house.

It moaned and groaned but the old farmhouse held strong. All the noises were a little creepy, but Cloud hardly noticed over the sounds of his own (slightly obnoxious) laughter. He had thick pajamas on and was huddled into a ball underneath several comforters reading online comments on his tablet.

He'd published a collection of unfinished works as well as short stories. All of Leon Leonhart's stupider adventures… all the _what if_ scenarios and steamy gay love scenes he'd been too afraid to include with his authorly reputation on the line, were out. He'd indulged his fans, writing all the things they'd wanted him to.

The reviews were cracking him up.

 _So Leonhart is gay now? Talk about pandering… I'm done with this series._

Cloud responded, _Good fucking riddance. I'm bisexual myself and not 'pandering' to anybody. (And yes, Leonhart is gay – the hottest gay detective in all of Midgar, don't you think?)_

His answer had a hundred little 'approvals' in a matter of minutes. Cloud skipped around, answering some people and approving on others. His editor had been appalled at some of the short stories, but _man,_ this was all so _fun_. When your livelihood didn't depend on it, writing was a lot more fun.

It felt good to get it all out there. He wasn't leaving Gaia with much holding him back or left unfinished. As he posted another snarky response to a dissatisfied fan he became aware of an annoying buzzing. As he paused, lowering the tablet, it got louder. Louder. _Louder._

"Oh, shit!" Cloud said. He scrambled out of bed and clapped his hands to his ears. The house started to shake. The paintings in the hall fell to the ground as Cloud ran down the stairs.

The windows did not blow out this time. As Cloud jammed on his boots the whole house lit up electric blue.

His heart beat painfully against his ribcage. He had one last blog post for all of his fans, and a thing to send to his lawyer before he disappeared, and some things he wanted to bring with him that weren't all packed. He'd make Sephiroth come inside for half an hour (or maybe quite a bit longer) before they took back off.

He threw open the front door and ran out into the snow. It came up to his knees and each step was difficult, but he kept his eyes on the new spaceship in the distance surrounded by warming slush—and on the giant ball of mako, jelly and tentacles that exited it.

Already he was transforming. There they were: the hair, the wing, the jacket, the eyes, the ears—and most importantly, the smile.


End file.
